The news is not good. Here on Planet Earth, we live in perilous times. Such is the warning from fourteen climate experts from Australia, Brazil, China, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States in their article “The 2024 State of the Climate Report: Perilous times on planet Earth” published in the BioScience magazine on October 8, 2024.

“We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster,” they warn. “This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.”

Why the bleak prognosis? Of the 35 “planetary vital signs” they use to track the climate emergency, 25 are at record extremes. These include U.S. heat-related mortality, fossil fuel subsidies, coal and oil consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, per-capita meat production, global tree cover loss due to fires, ocean acidity and heat content change, glacier thickness change, and ice mass change in Antarctica and Greenland.

As demonstrated in “Table 1: Recent Climate Disasters from November 2023 to August 2024,” they emphasize the rapidly escalating climate-related impacts of our global failure to support a rapid and socially just fossil fuel phasedown. Not included in this list are the supercharged Hurricanes Helene and Milton that developed in the Gulf of Mexico in late September during publication of their report. Unforeseen, too, are the flash floods in Spain on October 29th triggered by an “extraordinary deluge” that dumped twenty months of rain in just eight hours. Sounds familiar?

Meanwhile, here in the United States, the world’s largest historical climate polluter, a climate change denier and lover of “liquid gold” won a landslide victory to covet the presidential position. It turns out that the state of the economy was the defining issue for working-class voters. Do they know that there’s no economy on an unlivable planet?

On Wednesday, November 6th, yet another wildfire, named the Mountain Fire, exploded in Southern California. This time, it’s a residential area northwest of Los Angeles. Our Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Thursday after the fire grew to 20,000 acres in 24 hours. Driven by fierce offshore Santa Ana winds, the fire moved so fast that some people only escaped with their lives. (See captioned photo and link to emergency declaration.)

“Climate crunch time is here,” climate scientists say in their Emissions Gap Report 2024, released by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) on October 24, 2024. The time for procrastination has long passed. We’re now in the end game when decisive action is needed. With global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reaching a record high in 2023, an increase of 1.3 percent from the previous year, it’s now imperative that nations worldwide make massive increases in their pledges to reduce their GHG emissions.

This calls for severe cuts of 42 percent of emissions by 2030, compared with 2019 levels, and 57 percent by 2035. If they don’t, the Paris Agreement target of holding global warming to 1.5°C will escape humanity’s control within a few years. Only the gods know what life would be like with warming of 2°C.

The good news is that sectors are shifting towards renewable sources and electrification. But it’s not yet fast enough to make a dent in displacing fossil fuels. The six largest emitters in 2023 are China (30%), the United States of America (11%), India (8%), the European Union (6%), the Russian Federation (5%), and Brazil (2%).

The G20 members accounted for 77 percent of global GHG emissions, excluding the 55 countries of the African Union (6%) which joined the group in 2023. The Least Developed Countries, comprised of 47 countries, accounted for only 3 percent. To be fair, it makes total sense that the G20 nations should reduce their emissions at faster rates to close the emissions gap.

The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin No. 20 published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on October 28, 2024, paints a detailed picture of the three top greenhouse gases (GHG) driving climate change: atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and nitrous oxide (N₂O). Based on the latest analysis of observations from the WMO Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW), globally averaged surface concentration for all three gases reached new highs in 2023. [The following emphases are mine.] 

Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) is the top greenhouse gas driving climate change. It accounts for about 66 percent of radiative forcing by the long-lived greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere. CO₂ is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than at any time during human existence. The current atmospheric CO₂ level is already 151 percent above that of the pre-industrial (before 1750) era. Since then, humanity’s addiction to fossil fuels continues to pollute our atmosphere with ever-growing emissions of carbon dioxide.

The year 2023 was an exceptionally warm year. Global temperature across the land and the oceans was the highest in records dating as far back as 1850. While California burned, releasing more CO₂ into the atmosphere, I remember well doing all I could to stay cool during another summer of scorching temperatures. On the other hand, many terrestrial systems absorb less carbon when faced with extreme heat. It’s no wonder that my firestick succulent plants collapse during extremely hot days.  

Atmospheric methane (CH₄) is the second largest contributor to increased climate forcing. Compared to pre-industrial levels, methane soared by 265 percent. It’s emitted from anthropogenic sources, such as fossil fuel exploitation, livestock, waste and landfills, and rice cultivation. Natural sources include wetlands and shallow lakes.

Nitrous oxide (N₂O), the third most important individual contributor to global warming, has increased 125 percent compared to pre-industrial levels. It’s emitted into the atmosphere from natural sources (approx. 57%) and anthropogenic sources (approx. 43%). These include the oceans, soils, biomass burning, fertilizer use, and various industrial processes.

The sirens are blaring non-stop. If we are to leave a livable planet for our children and grandchildren, we must change our way of being and doing. Not tomorrow. Yesterday. Those of us who live in the G20 advanced economies must let go of our privileged lifestyles. I know, it’s not easy. We’re accustomed to having what we need and desire at our fingertips.

To deny meticulously observed and recorded climate data will not change the outcome. To threaten and silence our climate experts, who dare to tell us the truth, will not end the growing number of catastrophic, natural disasters here in the USA and worldwide. To accuse “radical leftist elites” of controlling a supercharged Category 4 hurricane is, in my view, the ultimate self-delusion.

Breathe in… Breathe out.

Video: “It’s Climate Crunch Time. It’s Time to Level Up,” published by UN Environment Program (UNEP), October 24, 2024