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A global temperature rise of above 1.5°C would not spell the end of humanity, though it would make the world a more dangerous place, according to the newly appointed head of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jim Skea.
Surpassing the 1.5°C mark would lead to many problems and social tensions, but it would not constitute an existential threat to humanity, according to him.
Skea: Warnings of extinction “paralyze” people
Speaking to German media outlets, Skea said that warnings of extinction “paralyze” people, preventing them from taking the necessary steps to tackle climate change. People “should not despair and fall into a state of shock” if average global temperatures were to increase by 1.5°C, he was quoted as saying in an interview with Der Spiegel.
There are good reasons to be optimistic in the fight against climate change
He also claims that there are good reasons to be optimistic and that every measure aimed at weakening climate change helps. These measures, according to him, are becoming increasingly cost-effective.
Skea added that a short-term focus should remain on expanding renewable electricity to reduce emissions from fossil fuels.
Individual climate action alone is not enough
On individual climate action, the new IPCC chief says that it alone will not bring about the necessary change. That, he says, requires new infrastructure, because, for example, “people will not get on bikes if there are no cycle paths.”
Sad to see this kind of dissembling, explicitly motivated by a wish to have an ideological effect and get people to stick to the existing program. In reality the warming poses greatly increased dangers, and the only way to keep it below the threshold is to do sunlight deflection as well. We have to hope the new IPCC director is not ideologically resistant to doing that, and will not continue to obfuscate the need for stepping up the research and development on it..