Alarmists: Nine Years to Avoid ‘Critical Climate Change Threshold’

FILE - In this Jan. 18, 2016 file photo, an oil pump works at sunset, in the desert oil fi
AP Photo/Hasan Jamali, File

ROME — Climate change alarmists are pressing for faster transition away from affordable fossil fuels, insisting that the world has only nine years to avoid a “critical climate change threshold.”

Citing the yearly Global Carbon Budget report, Zack Budryk wrote in the Hill Friday that humanity must radically reduce its consumption of fossil fuels to avoid crossing the 1.5-degree warming threshold, warning that at current levels that threshold will be reached in just nine years.

Assuming 2022 emissions levels, the Global Carbon Budget to limit global warming to 1.5, 1.7, and 2º C has reduced to the equivalent of 9, 18, and 30 years, the report stated.

The authors of the report assume a likelihood of 68 percent that “the true value will be within the provided range,” a choice that reflects “the difficulty of characterizing the uncertainty in the CO2 fluxes between the atmosphere and the ocean and land reservoirs individually, particularly on an annual basis, as well as the difficulty of updating the CO2 emissions from land-use change.”

The report projects that China will have cut its carbon emissions by about 0.9 percent in 2022, while the European Union is believed to have reduced emissions by around 0.8 percent. The report expects the U.S. to have increased its emissions by 1.5 percent over the same period and India to have increased emissions by 6 percent.

Leaders meeting at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh “will have to take meaningful action if we are to have any chance of limiting global warming close to 1.5°C,” Pierre Friedlingstein, the report’s lead author, said. “The Global Carbon Budget numbers monitor the progress on climate action and right now we are not seeing the action required.”

In Friday’s article, Budryk highlighted the steps countries can take to “get back on track,” especially “accelerating the transition to renewable energy.”

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