The starting point for the news Debate on 1 December was a conversation between committed young, anxious climate activists and us researchers. We constantly emphasized the seriousness of the situation, and that we are mostly in line with the young people. Nevertheless, someone has obviously perceived that we stand for a “relax, it’s-going-well” attitude. And the impression has unfortunately been reinforced by news’s subsequent online story with the headline: “Climate scientists want to reduce climate anxiety; Nature will clean up after the party”, a headline that does not harmonize with the content. Let it be absolutely clear; the situation is deeply serious for the planet, both in terms of climate change and nature loss, two crises that mutually reinforce each other. * We can reach real tipping points in climate and ecosystems: such as the thawing of permafrost, the melting of the Greenland ice sheet and the collapse of inalienable ecosystems such as the Amazon. * We have lost large parts of the world’s nature, and the loss continues: the CO2 concentration is close to 420 ppm, a level the planet has not experienced for several million years, and we are heading for 2.5 degrees of warming, even with the commitments that has so far been registered as part of the Paris Agreement. No one can say exactly what this will entail in terms of extreme weather of various kinds, how this will affect the planet and society, other than that it will cost dearly both in terms of human suffering and destroyed nature. The costs of climate change will also far exceed the efforts required to avoid this. This effort will not necessarily be very expensive, but it will require a restructuring of the economy going forward. Climate change is already considered by far the biggest global threat to human health, and is one of the biggest security policy challenges we face. The geopolitical consequences will also be extensive. The designation “code red for humanity” is therefore justified, something we also expressed in the Debate. But there are some mitigating considerations there as well. First and foremost, the basic fact that the planet will survive, we are not headed for final doom. Secondly, that there is every reason to expect that humanity will also manage. Areas where there are people today can be effectively seen as uninhabitable, due to frequent extreme weather or poor conditions for agriculture, with all the suffering and migrations that entails. Our central point, however, is that we must avoid apathy based on a feeling that “the race is over”, that the future has been cancelled, precisely in order to urge efforts from young people and everyone else. Every tenth of a degree of global warming we can avoid, and every square kilometer of nature we can save, has an effect. And although it is important to clear up misunderstandings such as that 69 percent of the world’s species have become extinct since 1970 (a claim that, mind you, does not come from the young people on the panel), it is dramatic, to say the least, that we have an average decline in animal populations of 69 percent – and a greatly increased rate of extinction. The situation is therefore more than serious enough, for both society and nature, without the need to go further than what the research says. Our message is simply to stand on, and the effort from each one of us counts in the efforts to correct the planet’s crooked course. As researchers, we have a responsibility to communicate what science says. We, and many others, have for a long time carried the message about how big our challenge is, and that far too little is being done to meet it. Fortunately, the acceptance that we need climate policy has increased internationally in recent years. The climate and nature crises are now at the top of the political agenda, and commitment is increasing day by day, even if the major results in the form of reduced emissions and lower pressure on nature have not yet arrived. The next ten years are absolutely crucial for changing course. Our solutions must be built on the best of knowledge. Therefore, we must also speak out when certain messages go further than there is a basis for. And will nature clean up after the party? It is already helping, but cannot solve the problems in the short term. Nature today takes care of half of our CO2 emissions, and the oceans receive 90 percent of the energy from global warming. These are natural services that we must take care of, if the situation is not to become even worse than it is. Even if the house is standing after the party, there will be a lot of broken furniture, fire damage to the parquet and water damage to the bathroom. The clean-up will take a long time, and in the meantime it can be very unpleasant to live here. The solution is to cut emissions, reduce consumption, and adapt to a changing climate. Now.
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Will nature clean up after the party? – Speech
