Global average temperatures hit 1.5 degrees and climate devastation ensues
Global average temperatures have been at least 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial averages every month for the past twelve months, according to the European Union-run Copernicus Climate Change Service. Every one of those months also set monthly temperature records.
The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement sought to limit global warming to a 1.5 degree threshold, warning that surpassing this could lead to catastrophic runaway warming. If this target is achieved, it will represent a “best case scenario”, according to the agreement.
What does a “best case scenario” of warming look like? The past twelve months provide the answer.
It looks like record-breaking wildfires in Canada, which burnt over 16.5 million hectares of land. This was more than twice the previous Canadian record. Smoke from the fires blanketed New York and other cities in scenes reminiscent of the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires in Australia.
It looks like historic heatwaves across the world, from North America to Africa, southern Europe, the Middle East, China and India. Phoenix, Arizona, experienced a record 31 consecutive days of temperatures above 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius) last year. China, Morocco, Albania, Turkey and Brazil all clocked record temperatures, while the town of Jerzu in Italy suffered the highest temperatures ever recorded in Europe. Heatwaves in India this year killed at least 110 people, and in Saudi Arabia at least 1,300 people died from extreme heat during the hajj, according to Saudi Arabia’s health minister.
It looks like severe rainfall and flooding in China less than a month after recording its hottest day ever, as well as severe tropical storms like Hurricane Beryl—notable for being the earliest recorded category five hurricane in history.
It looks like the hottest day on record (6 July 2023), the hottest month on record (December 2023) and the hottest year on record (2023).
This is the new normal under the “best case scenario”. But as former NASA scientist James Hansen told the Independent, limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees is “deader than a doornail”. According to the United Nations Environment Programme’s 2023 Emissions Gap Report, even if countries implemented all their current commitments under the Paris Agreement, the world would be on track for 2.5 degrees of warming by 2100.
The reality is likely to be even worse, as greenhouse gas emissions are rising, not falling. For instance, despite Australia’s formal commitment to net zero emissions by 2050, the Albanese government’s Future Gas Strategy, released in May, commits Australia to “continued gas development” and the use of gas “through to 2050 and beyond”. The annual Global Carbon Budget found that carbon dioxide emissions hit a record high of 36.8 billion tonnes in 2023.
Capitalism is unfit to tackle climate change: its rapacious drive for profit above all else has the world teetering on the edge of total climate disaster. It has proven incapable of limiting global warming to anything approaching a “safe” level, and living with the effects of climate change under capitalism will be unbearable for millions, if not billions, of people.
Mexico and Brazil suffered heatwaves last year, yet only 16 percent of households in those countries have an air conditioner, according to the International Energy Agency. In India that number drops to 5 percent. There’s no prize for guessing whether Indian billionaire Gautam Adani (of the Adani coal mine) belongs to that 5 percent.
Millions of people will become climate refugees, fleeing rising sea levels and unbearable heat. Yet across the world, governments are imposing ever stricter anti-migrant and anti-refugee measures.
In Australia, according to the Bureau of Statistics, insurance prices increased 14 percent in the year to May, largely driven by extreme weather events. This has left houses in Lismore virtually uninsurable after two “once in a lifetime” floods in five years.
Although some degree of adaptation to the effects of climate change may be possible under capitalism, it will fall far short of what is needed. Whilst those who are responsible for and benefit from climate destruction flourish, working people, particularly those in the Global South, suffer. We need to radically reorganise the entire way in which we produce goods, construct cities and interact with the natural environment. This will be impossible while the profit motive reigns supreme.
