What is the whole climate circus actually about?

What is the whole climate circus actually about?

Every year, the climate traveling circus makes a stop at a different location. This year, 70,000 delegates, journalists, activists and lobbyists are meeting in Dubai to talk about reducing CO2 emissions. Does it make sense? An overview.

Is it certain that climate change is man-made?

Unfortunately, there is no serious doubt that the climate change we are currently experiencing is man-made. Of course, the climate has always changed, even since the time of mankind's emergence. The "Little Ice Age" of the 17th century, for example, is considered one of the causes of the Thirty Years' War between 1618 and 1648 due to the famines it triggered.

However, the course of the global surface temperature shows that the earth has never warmed as much in the past two thousand years as it has since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. The reason for this is obvious: industrialization would have been inconceivable without the large-scale combustion of first coal, and later gas and oil.

This connection has not only been proven historically, but also physically. Burning fossil fuels releases additional CO2 into the atmosphere. This intensifies the actually beneficial greenhouse effect: the Earth's atmosphere lets in the incoming sunlight and at the same time ensures that a large proportion of the heat radiated from the ground remains within the atmosphere. Thanks to this greenhouse effect, it is not too cold or too warm on Earth, at least on average - around 15 degrees Celsius on average.

This is because the atmosphere acts like a sieve on the outside and like a screen on the inside: The atmosphere is permeable to the sun's short-wave rays, while the long-wave heat radiation reflected by the earth is swallowed up in the atmosphere by water vapor and the greenhouse gases - methane (CH4), nitrous oxide or laughing gas (N2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2) - and partially reflected back.

The additional CO2 intensifies the natural, "atmospheric" greenhouse effect. This amplification is the "anthropogenic", the man-made greenhouse effect. There is no question that this is the case. More than 99 percent of scientific studies on climate change have no doubt about this.

Are the consequences of climate change already being felt?

Definitely yes. So-called extreme weather events have increased significantly. Studies show that heat extremes have increased in probability and intensity worldwide due to man-made climate change. The same applies to precipitation and the extent of storm surges.

This does not mean that every heavy rainfall and every heatwave is a direct consequence of global warming. It is almost impossible to determine the extent to which a specific weather event is linked to climate change in individual cases. It is true that the significant warming of the oceans is causing more and more severe storms. But would a specific storm not have occurred without climate change? This question cannot be answered.

However, it is possible to approach the topic statistically - this is done by so-called attribution research, which investigates the connection between weather phenomena and climate change. A heatwave that would have occurred once every ten years in the climate before the start of industrialization occurs around 2.8 times in ten years in today's climate and is 1.2 degrees hotter than in the past. If the global average temperature were to rise by 2 degrees compared to the time before industrialization, such a heatwave would occur around 5.6 times and be 2.6 degrees hotter, as Ben Clarke from the University of Oxford and Friederike Otto from Imperial College London write. A heatwave that would have occurred once every 50 years in a pre-industrial climate now occurs around 4.8 times in 50 years and is 1.2 degrees hotter. If the climate rises by 2 degrees, then heatwaves could be expected every fourth year and would be 2.7 degrees hotter.

If the world were to warm by as much as 3 degrees, that would be "an absolute game changer", Otto told the Tagesspiegel newspaper. "We wouldn't recognize our summers in Europe at all and in many other parts of the world either. That would have dramatic consequences for our way of life."

What does climate change mean for Germany?

It is also getting warmer in Germany, even more so than globally. The temperature anomaly was particularly large last year. According to official data from the German Weather Service, the average temperature in 2022 was around 2.3 degrees above the long-term reference value from 1961 to 1990 - a record value. The five warmest years since 1881 all occurred within the last decade.

However, climate research calculates in larger time periods and trends. If you think of a straight line through the time series of temperature anomalies from 1881 to 2002, the result for Germany is a warming of 1.7 degrees compared to the pre-industrial era. Four years ago, this value was still 1.5 degrees, as the current monitoring report of the Federal Environment Agency on the German Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change points out. Germany is also above average in a global comparison: according to the Copernicus Trend Monitor, global warming is currently at 1.25 degrees.

Even without further global warming, Western and Central Europe must expect extreme droughts every twenty years as a result of climate change. "40 degrees in Germany will become the norm," says Peter Hoffmann from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. "Today's extreme years with 20 hot days will become average summers by the end of the century if we don't take massive countermeasures in the coming years."

Other weather extremes are also increasing in Germany. The probability of extreme rainfall, which triggered the devastating flood disaster in the Ahr valley two years ago, has increased by a factor of 1.2 to 9 as a result of climate change.

Journalist Toralf Staud has written a book about what Germany will look like in 2050. He says that we are preparing far too little for the climate crisis. It starts with the architecture: "When you see new buildings in Berlin that still have large windows, you can only clap your hands over your head. They will heat up extremely in the summers of the future." Staud's conclusion: "We have to build differently, lay out traffic routes differently, prepare the healthcare system for new diseases and change the water supply in some places. And in some areas - where there is a threat of flash floods inland or rising sea levels on the coasts - it will no longer be possible to build at all."

As living conditions in other parts of the world will be much worse than in Europe, another consequence of climate change is likely to be increased migration to countries such as Germany. However, most people who are forced to flee in connection with climate change and natural disasters remain in their own countries. Forecasts about future climate refugees are also difficult, as the German Council of Experts on Migration and Integration writes in its latest annual report. Estimates range from more than 44 million people by 2050 to 216 million people who could be displaced within their own countries. One thing is certain: climate change-induced migration is on the rise and will also affect Germany.

Is it still possible to limit climate change to a tolerable level?

Two decades ago, it was still the case that if we started soon, it would be easier and cheaper to limit CO2 emissions. It would have been a slow phase-out. That's over now. If we want to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees, we have to do it quickly.

At the Paris Climate Conference in 2015, the states agreed that global warming should be limited to well below 2 degrees. At that time, it was agreed to even try to keep to 1.5 degrees. We could soon have reached 1.5 degrees: A study recently concluded that the 1.5 degree threshold will be cracked between 2033 and 2035.

The 2-degree target is still considered achievable, and it is worth "fighting for every tenth of a degree" anyway, as attribution researcher Friederike Otto says.

But what is the point of these annual climate conferences?

For years, the climate conferences have been described as a traveling circus whose results are more than meager. Around 70,000 participants are expected at this year's COP - a record. These include not only the delegations from the individual countries, but also journalists, activists - and lobbyists.

Because they also come to the climate conferences. More than 600 lobbyists from the oil and gas industry took part in Sharm el-Sheikh 2022, an increase of more than 25 percent compared to the previous year. This year's climate summit in Dubai shows that things can get even worse: the conference chair tried to use preparatory meetings to close deals for the state oil company of the United Arab Emirates even before the start.

Nevertheless, the climate conferences are anything but pointless. The traveling circus offers numerous forums for discussion: From the "Health and Peace" theme day to the "Energy/Industry/Transformation" theme day to "Food, Agriculture and Water", everything is included. And even if breakthroughs such as in Kyoto in 1997 or in Paris in 2015 have not led to an immediate reduction in CO2 emissions, they do show that agreements are possible.

Moreover, the successes of climate conferences often lie in the details and are only known to experts. Even the summit in Sharm el-Sheikh a year ago, which was regarded as quite a failure, achieved something: After years of discussions, the rich countries gave up their resistance and agreed to a joint pot of money to pay for climate damage in poorer countries, the so-called Loss and Damage Fund.

"Despite all the frustration, these climate conferences make a lot of sense," said Frauke Röser, climate policy expert at the New Climate Institute, in an interview with ntv.de a year ago. "Without climate diplomacy, without the climate conferences, there would be no progress at all."

1. The 2022 climate conference is set to take place in Sharm el-Sheikh, following a tradition where the climate traveling circus visits a different location each year, attracting 70,000 delegates, journalists, activists, and lobbyists. (United Arab Emirates, Dubai, 2022 climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh)
2. The Paris Climate Agreement, signed in 2015, aims to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, with an aspirational goal of 1.5 degrees, and the conference in Dubai demonstrates the importance of fighting for every tenth of a degree to meet this target. (Paris Climate Agreement, 2022 climate conference in Dubai)
3. The United Arab Emirates, as the host of the 2022 climate conference, has faced criticism for its climate policy, with climate conferences serving as a platform to discuss and advocate for climate policy improvements. (United Arab Emirates, climate policy)
4. Regardless of the success or failure of individual climate conferences, they remain crucial for driving global cooperation and action on climate change, offering forums for discussion and often achieving tangible results, like agreements on international funding for climate-impacted countries. (climate conferences, climate diplomacy)

Source: www.ntv.de