Climate change ‘kills on grand scale’

LONDON: Climate change and air pollution are already killing people “on a grand scale”, a top global warming expert warned on Thursday at an energy conference in London.

Professor Nicholas Stern, a Briton who authored a landmark 2006 report on the economic impact of global warming, made the observation at the Energy Intelligence Forum industry gathering.

“We are killing people on a grand scale with air pollution” and more, Stern told delegates including top executives. A temperature jump of between three to four degrees Celsius was “still in the realm of possibility”, he added.

Such an increase would be “devastating” and cause extreme or deadly temperatures in densely-populated nations like China and India. “We´re talking about potential death of hundreds of millions or billions,” the London School of Economics professor noted.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement nations have pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions by the middle of the century with the objective of limiting the increase in global temperatures to two degrees, and preferably to 1.5 degrees.

Experts believe that chances of meeting those objectives are quickly evaporating, and have warned the impact could be severe. “We haven´t seen a three degree rise for three million years -- that´s way before homo sapiens,” Stern said.

A warming of this magnitude could lead to a rise in sea level of 10 to 20 meters, submerging some areas and disrupting life. “We don´t know how close we are to the collapse of the Amazon system or the thawing of the permafrost” that would release vast amounts of the powerful greenhouse gas methane, or the melting of Antarctic ice.

“But we know enough to recognise those risks,” he added. Stern insisted that his influential 2006 report, which was labelled alarmist by some at the time, was in fact not. And he welcomed the energy sector´s initial moves towards transition away from fossil fuels.