Research has shown that the temperature will rise between 2 to 3 degrees in the region, by the end of the century, even if global CO2 emissions stabilize. In the opposite case, if the emissions remain on the rise, the region might heat up even more – up to 5 degrees by 2100. Since most of the economies of the Western Balkans heavily relies on the industries vulnerable to climate change, such as agriculture, forestry, tourism – the information regarding potential temperature rise should be red alert to us.
"My friend and I are sitting on a bench, gazing at the stars, listening to the latest news…they say we only have a couple years left for us"…These are the lyrics sung by the Ekatarina Velika, back in 1989. Today, they seem like a prophecy about to be fulfilled.
By entering the industrial era, the mankind has stepped on the path of climate change, which is a process directly fueled by human activity. The global temperature has already risen around 1 degree compared with preindustrial period. The sea level is on the rise as well, some of the island nations are disappearing, many animals and plants as well are on the brink of extinction. There are economic and social consequences as well, such as migrations, food and water scarcity, epidemics, floods, droughts and other natural disasters – all of that makes the reality we live in.
The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change – IPCC, as an institution with the highest scientific credibility, has published its Report in October 2018. This Report underlines that we have no more than 12 years to prevent drastic climate change. All of the media recognized this as important news and the wake-up call for humanity. However, this Report seemed to fail when it comes to capturing the attention of the Serbian media.
Straight towards the point of no return
The IPCC was established by the World Meteorological Organisation and UNEP, with the aim to studz and assess the latest scientific, technical and social trends and development, with implications on climate change. The IPCC doesn’t conduct any research on climate change. Scientists gathered in IPCC conduct assessment of information and available research results from all over the world. Their reports provide accurate, quality, scientifically based information to the decision makers, such as presidents or international organizations’ leaders. The latest report carries the message that the entire humanity is very close to the point of no return.
Ignoring this Report is simply not an option. We absolutely must get very worried.
Signatories to the Paris climate accord, the biggest global agreement on climate have committed, back in 2015, to reduce GHG emissions to the level that would keep the global temperature rise to the point of 2 degrees Celsius, while putting in additional effort to limit it even more, down to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared with pre-industrial level.
However, total efforts towards emissions reductions that the countries have obliged to, are still not sufficient to meet the goals of the Paris accord. It seems that, with the measures currently implemented, we are still set to experience temperature rise between 3 to 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century(1).
Increase of average global temperature over 2 degrees Celsius carries many risks of irreversible damage to the climate system and destruction of many ecosystems that humanity depends on, in terms of food, energy and resources production. Back in 2015, scientists considered 2 degrees Celsius to be the red line, however the latest Report shows that the warming of as little as two degrees can still cause detrimental effects, with necessity of moving the red line half a degree lower, to 1,5 degrees.
What difference does half a degree make?
Saved by the 0.5 degree
Although it may seem insignificant, half a degree is the difference between extinction and survival of many vital ecosystems, tens of millions of people, as well as many island nations. For example, global temperature rise of 2 degrees means taht coral reefs, which provide food and resources for over a billion people on the planet and represent one of the most important regulatory oceanic ecosystems – are set to completely disappear. Even with the temperature rise down to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century, most of the coral reefs will extinct anyway, with 10 to 30% of the reefs surviving the climate change.
Furthermore, 2 degrees will make the ice from the Northern polar cap melt entirely once in ten years, whereas this is about to happen only once in 100 years, if we manage to keep it below 1.5 degrees. Melting of the ice means that the ocean levels will rise, however the difference of half a degree would result in 10 cm of the ocean rise less, if global warming is limited below 1.5 degrees. These 10 cm are a life-saving difference for cities such as London, Shanghai, the state of Floride and the island nations of Maldives and Mauritius, all of which could be in fatal risk if temperature went two degrees higher.
2 degrees would also result in water scarcity for many regions and floods for others. Coastline and flatlands would be the most vulnerable to floods risks. Many regions will also be faced with health problems, particularly developing countries (there will be a risk of illnesses caused by contaminated food, water and frequent heatwaves). Reduction of arable land due to climate change, as well as destruction of many crops due to droughts and floods, could directly cause global food production crisis and put hundreds of millions of people at risk. In these conditions, we could expect massive migration waves of climate refugees, fleeding the most vulnerable regions, such as Africa and parts of Asia.
We need thorough changes
The scientists came to relize that limiting temperature growth within 1,5 degrees is still possible, but only if swift and comprehensive changes are implemented in all sectors of society – an unprecedented change, almost unlike any other in our history. From the way we produce, transmit and consume energy, produce food, right until our nutrition habits and clothing, also including the way we build our homes and how we commute – all of these aspects of our lives need to be reshaped.
In order to achieve the goal, we have to cut GHG emissions in half until 2030 (compared with 2010 as a baseline year), and reach ground zero with GHG emissions until 2050. This kind of emission reductions would mean that the share of renewables would have to rise from 70 to 85 percent (compared with the current 20%), with almost complete phase out of coal. In such scenarios, technologies for collecting and storaging CO2 are also implemented, which is something that to date is not fully operational.
One of the main conclusions from the Report is that we will, if the GHG emissions continue to rise with this tempo, come to the point of 1.5 degrees rise in only 12 years from now. That means that we will be on the other side of the red line no later than in 2030.
Who cares about the climate anyway?
If there’s anyone who still believes that climate change is not going to affect us here, in the Balkans, they could not be more wrong. Countries of the Western Balkans are very vulnerable to cllimate change.
The research (2) has shown that the temperature in the region will rise between 2 to 3 degrees Celsius, even if the global emissions stabilise. If emissions continue to rise, we will experience 5 degrees higher temperature by the end of the century. Since major part of the economy in the region relies on economy sectors highly vulnerable to climate change, such as agriculture, forestry, energy production – these estimations are threatening. Northern parts of the region will be prone to floods, whereas water scarcity is expected in the south. By the middle of the century, most of the region will experience severe droughts. Frequency and duration of heat waves, something that we experience every day, will only get worse. In these conditions we will also witness significant decrease in food production, increased energy consumption for the purpose of cooling, as well as scarcity of drinking water in countries of the Western Balkans.
Consequences of climate change is something we are already experiencing. Let us not forget the floods that took place in 2014, affecting more than 1600000 people in Serbia and causing 4, 7 GDP-worth of damage – over 1,5 billion euros (3), while losses in Bosnia and Herzegovina amounted to 15% of GDP (4).
The most vulnerable and hardest hit were the sectors of energy production, mining, agriculture, housing, economy and traffic – these are all sectors that make up for the largest piece of our local economy.
The damage from potential droughts are even higher. In Serbia, the drought of 2012 has reduced the agriculture production by 17% and affected our GDP growth more strongly than the 2014 floods (5).
In the last 100 years, the number of natural disasters (floods, fire, droughts, etc) has increased from 100 in the first 40 years of the 20th century (1900-1940), up to 2800 such events in the last decade of the century (1990-2000).
The countries of the Western Balkans are simply not ready for climate change.
Has the time come for us to scream around in panic and give our neighbours a very obvious heads-up about the upcoming apocalypse?
The answer is – No.
There is no room for panic, but it’s high time we talked about this with our neighbors, colleagues, family.
It’s time to make a stand and claim responsibility. Responsibility for our actions and choices, for starters.
The time has come for us to start saving energy, implement energy efficiency measures, use public transport, buy locally produced food and reduce meat consumption. It is also time for us to claim accountability as citizens, make better political choices and remind our decision makers to act more accountably.
There are several very important public policies in Serbia, currently being developed and with great impact on how Serbia will address the climate change. The most important one is, certainly, the Climate change strytegy with the Action plan, the document we expect to see adopted somewhere during 2019. We are also set to adopt the Law on Climate Change. However, the truth behind all of this is that Serbia doesn’t even have a reliable and transparent GHG inventory, with energy sector still heavily relying on fossil fuels.
Climate change is not only important during electoral campaign, although it has severe impact on the life of all of us. It is up to us – the citizens, to remind our decision makers about their duties and require transparent, scientifically based climate policy development in Serbia.
Will we make it by the end of the century?
The IPCC report still reminds us that, with technology and knowledge we are currently possessing – we can still stop the irreversible changes of our global climate system and reduce floods, droughts, food scarcity and other consequences. What we need for that is a political will and strong international cooperation.
The next few years will be crucial for survival of the world as we know it.
In December, signatories of the Paris climate accord will meet again in Poland, with country leaders set to negotiate on how to address the global climate challenge. The outcome of the global race will depend only on whether the need for progress will prevail over the need for survival. To be or to have more, that is the question.
Mirjana Jovanović, Belgrade Open School
Katarina Đorđević, MINGL e-journal
Photo credists: Freepik
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(1) The Emissions Gap Report 2017 - UN Environment: https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/22070/EGR_2017.pdf
(2) Regional Cooperation Council: Study on climate change in the Western Balkans:
https://www.rcc.int/news/383/rcc-publishes-study-on-climate-change-in-the-western-balkans-alarming-increase-of-temperature-over-the-whole-territory
(3) Financial losses due to natural disasters in Serbia and Šumadija region:
https://scindeks-clanci.ceon.rs/data/pdf/1452-4457/2015/1452-44571502099P.pdf
(4) Climate change and its effect on the region:
http://www.ekof.bg.ac.rs/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Rad-140-II.pdf
(5) Quarterly monitor of economic trends and policies in Serbia:
http://www.fren.org.rs/sites/default/files/qm/QM36srpski_0.pdf