A group of experts is pushing for a global assessment of avoidable climate risks to help inform governments and citizens.
The world remains “unprepared” for the risks of climate change, despite overwhelming evidence that the planet is heading towards irreversible damage.
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A group of experts has published a paper in the science journal Nature, warning that the world lacks an "authoritative and up to date assessment” of climate change risks that would help governments and citizens understand the urgency of cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Despite the “huge consequences” of a warming world, there has never been an internationally coordinated and mandated global risk analysis. It means policy makers could be inadvertently undermining the full scale of the threat, ineffectively prioritising resources, and deploying the wrong kind of mitigation responses.
The case for a global risk assessment on climate change
The impacts of rising temperatures are already being witnessed in every region. Last year, Europe sweltered through a slew of heatwaves that killed thousands of people and fuelled wildfires that burnt more than 380,000 hectares of land in Spain alone.
Researchers at Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine looked at 854 European cities and found that climate change was responsible for 68 per cent of the 24,400 estimated heat deaths last summer, having raised temperatures by up to 3.6°C.
For every 1℃ rise in air temperature, the atmosphere can hold around seven per cent more moisture, which can lead to more intense and heavy rainfall. This paved the way for overlapping tropical storms that sparked widespread devastation across Asia last year.
But scientists point out that policymakers may still be responding to these disasters ineffectively. For example, rising sea levels require more spending on flood defences, but governments may not be aware that parts of a large city – such as London or New York – may have to be abandoned completely if heat-trapping emissions continue to bake the planet.
“Equally, they may be aware that more people will die in heatwaves in a hotter climate yet be unprepared for mass casualties if tens of thousands of people in one region were to die in conditions exceeding the limits of human tolerance,” the report says.
Professor Rowan Sutton, one of two senior commentary authors and Director of the UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre, says humanity still has the opportunity to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and shape a “more prosperous, liveable future”.
“A global assessment of avoidable climate change risks would enable political leaders and citizens to fully understand what is at stake and motivate us all to seize that opportunity – while we still have it,” he adds.
What would a global risk assessment look like?
A thorough global risk assessment would provide leaders with an "authoritative overview” of the most significant climate risks, their impacts, and the likelihood of disastrous outcomes.
Instead of being a “counsel of despair” it would provide the world with a clear picture of the outcomes that societies can still choose to avoid. It would support the development of timely measures for mitigation and highlight the extent of human agency.
Of course, developing such a comprehensive assessment will be no easy feat.
“The complexity of climate science, the diversity of regional impacts, the need for diverse expertise, and the rapidly evolving nature of the risks all present significant obstacles,” Sutton says.
“In addition, political, economic, and data-sharing barriers have so far hindered the creation of a unified framework that can be updated regularly and accepted internationally.”
‘The time for this is now’
Professor Peter Scott, the paper’s other leading author, is a climate scientist at the Met Office and the University of Exeter in England.
He argues that the world currently stands at a crossroads in global efforts to reduce emissions. “Bridging the current gap in global risk assessment is an urgent priority,” he adds.
“An internationally mandated transparent assessment of avoidable climate change risks is essential to make clear the scale of the risks and the opportunities we have to avoid the worst-case scenarios and safeguard our shared future. The time for this is now.”
