The Paris Agreement of 2015 set a goal of keeping global temperatures below pre-industrial levels, and determined that the appropriate goal of reaching that objective was to keep global temperature increases below 1° Celsius. The year 2024 saw the first time in human history that that objective was surpassed. The BBC reports:
“The planet has moved a major step closer to warming more than 1.5C, new data shows, despite world leaders vowing a decade ago they would try to avoid this.
“The European Copernicus climate service, one of the main global data providers, said on Friday that 2024 was the first calendar year to pass the symbolic threshold, as well as the world’s hottest on record.
“This does not mean the international 1.5C target has been broken, because that refers to a long-term average over decades, but does bring us nearer to doing so as fossil fuel emissions continue to heat the atmosphere.
“Last week UN chief António Guterres described the recent run of temperature records as climate breakdown'”.
“‘We must exit this road to ruin – and we have no time to lose,’ he said in his New Year message, calling for countries to slash emissions of planet-warming gases in 2025.”
The goal was reached long before the date most climate models predicted. Zeke Hausfather, a climaste scientist, pointed out: “I think it’s safe to say that both 2023 and 2024 temperatures surprised most climate scientists – we didn’t think we’d be seeing a year above 1.5C this early.” The last ten years have been the hottest years on record. The report by Copernicus, the European Union’s climate monitor, outlines the significance of these developments in terms that affect human habitation.
It is impossible to connect directly weather events, such as wildfires, droughts, and heavy rains to climate change. But the evidence does suggest that climate change played a key role in the current wildfires in Los Angeles. According to the Yale School of the Environment, the connection is strong:
“As the planet heats up, rainfall is growing more erratic over much of the globe, leading to wide swings between wet and dry conditions. So-called ‘weather whiplash’ is ramping up the risk of wildfire in California, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA.
Last year, Los Angeles saw record rainfall, which fueled the growth of grasses and shrubs, but so far this winter the city has gotten a fraction of its usual rainfall, leaving dense vegetation to dry out. In light of the arid conditions, federal officials warned of ‘significant fire potential’ in the region.
Making matters worse, the region is seeing unusually strong Santa Ana winds, which bring hot, dry air from the mountains out to sea during the winter months. There is little evidence that warming has made the winds more potent, Swain said, but with climate change, California’s dry season is extending into the early winter, when the Santa Ana winds typically take shape. This, he said, ‘is the key climate change connection to Southern California wildfires.’”
And yet, President-Elect Trump blames the wildfires in LA on lack of forest management, water management, and disaster preparation. According to the New York Times: “In his post on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said: “I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!” I am not an expert on wildfires, and I suspect that there is probably a lot Los Angeles could have done to mitigate some of the destruction. The underlying conditions–months without rain and hurricane force winds–would probably have overwhelmed any response.
More importantly, perhaps it is possible to face the underlying conditions with more stored water, more firefighters, and airplanes capable of accurately dropping fire retardant in hurricane force winds. And maybe it is possible to control floods such as those caused by Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina. Who is going to pay for all these preventive and remedial efforts? This question is critical since we will have to pay for climate change in some way (money or lives) at some point (unpreductable).
But Trump is only raising the issue to divert attention from the issue of climate change which he described as a “hoax”. Instead, he wants to “drill, drill, drill”, a policy that would only accelerate climate change. He will likely pull the US out of the Paris Agreement (as he did in 2017) thereby compromising international efforts to control climate change.
Curiously, however, Trump apparantly does believe that climate change is real. His interest in purchasing Greenland stems from his belief that Greenland is going to be crucial as climate change creates a reliable northern passage for container ships. Moreover, Greenland is reputed to be a storehouse for minerals essential to a green revolution. The Economist reports: “….Greenland’s resource wealth is immense. It has known reserves of 43 of the 50 minerals deemed ‘critical’ by America’s government, including probably the largest deposits of rare earths outside China. These are crucial to military kit and green-energy equipment.”
If Greenland remains frozen, it would remain irrelevant to Trump’s aspirations. Unfortunately, climate change does not give us the ability to choose which outcomes we prefer.
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