What will life at 1.5+ degrees look like?

We are officially out of time to prevent hitting 1.5 degrees. Yep - earlier last week, the World Meteorological Organisation said that we are going to hit 1.5 degrees of global heating by 2027, which is just two years away.

So I thought we’d have an episode about what that really means - because what actually changes at 1.5 degrees? And what happens if we go beyond that?

In this episode:

• Why scientists identified 1.5 degrees as a milestone
• What a 1.5 degree increase will actually cause
• Where we are today with global heating
• The damage to the oceans and natural world from global warming
• Why a 1.5 degree change is now baked in
• What terrifying things happen at 2 degrees
• The places that could become uninhabitable in the next few decades
• The huge impact on cities and the losses we can expect over the next 80 years
• The big impacts on crops, people, and health at 2 degrees
• The economic impact we can expect from climate change over the next few decades
• What happens at 2.7 degrees, which is expected by 2100
• Why I don’t think this will be our future
• The single most powerful thing you can do to prevent this dark future

Episode Sources:

World Meteorological Organization (WMO) – Global Annual-to-Decadal Climate Update 2024

https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/global-temperatures-set-reach-new-records-next-five-years

NASA Earth Observatory – “Earth Is Storing More Heat” (summary of Cheng et al. 2023 Earth-energy-imbalance work)

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/152431/earth-is-storing-more-heat

von Schuckmann, K. et al. 2023 – “Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?” Earth System Science Data

https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-1675-2023

Cheng, L. et al. 2023 – “Record-setting ocean heat content and Earth system imbalance in 2023.” Advances in Atmospheric Sciences

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-023-2385-2

Dessler, A. E. 2021 – “Water-vapour feedback.” Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences

https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-082420-064024

Copernicus Emergency Management Service – Rapid Mapping EMERG0325, Emilia-Romagna Floods (2023)

https://rapidmapping.emergency.copernicus.eu/EMSR632

Bureau of Meteorology (Australia) – State of the Climate 2022

https://www.csiro.au/state-of-the-climate

NIWA – Climate-change projections and extreme-rainfall trends for New Zealand (2024 update)

https://niwa.co.nz/climate/research-projects/climate-change/extreme-weather

NOAA Coral Reef Watch – Global Coral Bleaching Event Status Update, April 2024

https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov

Gatti, L. V. et al. 2021 – “Amazonia as a carbon source linked to deforestation and climate change.” Nature 595:388–393

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03629-6

Trathan, P. N. et al. 2023 – “Climate-driven population decline of emperor penguins.” Communications Earth & Environment 4:148

https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-00772-3

Met Office (UK) – “One billion people face deadly heat stress at 2 °C warming.” Press release, Oct 2021

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2021/cop26-heat-stress

IPCC – Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C (2018), Chapter 3

https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/

IPCC – Sixth Assessment Report Synthesis (2023)

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/synthesis-report/

University of New South Wales – West Antarctic ice-sheet collapse threshold study (2022)

https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/west-antarctic-ice-sheet-may-have-passed-point-no-return

Project Drawdown – “The Powerful Role of Household Actions in Solving Climate Change” (2023)

https://drawdown.org/insights/the-powerful-role-of-household-actions-in-solving-climate-change

FAO – “Climate change could push 183 million more people into hunger by 2050.” News release, Sept 2021

https://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/climate-change-could-push-183-million-more-people-to-hunger/en

World Food Programme – “What if the world warms 3 °C? Hunger and the climate crisis.” 2022

Find the rest of the sources on our website and Substack!