The 2 degrees threshold

For a number of years now, it has been clear that the world must not warm by more than 2 degrees, on average, in order to prevent serious disruption of our climate. If this threshold is exceeded, this will not only lead to worldwide shortages of food and drinking water, but also very probably to a runaway effect, caused by the Earth itself.

The causes of these feedback mechanisms include a reduction in ice reflection at the poles, leading to more warmth being absorbed, CO2 release by the oceans rather than absorption, due to the higher temperatures, and the collapse of the tropical rainforests due to drought, with all the resultant CO2 release.

Not an attractive scenario, in other words. But we are not yet over this threshold. It is difficult to give exact figures, but we still have a few years, maybe even decades, in order to turn the tide and stop the warming.

What is more disturbing is the article that appeared in The Guardian last week. A survey of 261 top scientists revealed that the vast majority of them do not expect that we can stay below the 2 degrees threshold. 86% of them indicate that we will exceed the threshold, and due to the feedback mechanisms, we will have to start thinking in terms of warming in the region of 5 degrees, on average! The inability to stay under the 2 degrees threshold will, according to them, not be because we do not have the technical knowledge and resources, but because there is insufficient social and political will actually to implement them.

As a wealthy country which is strongly dependent economically on the low-lying western region of the Netherlands, we need to make every effort to ensure that we do stay below the 2 degrees limit. Unfortunately, the current cabinet is not yet taking the initiative in this debate but, let us hope that it will take a more robust position in the matter before the climate summit in Copenhagen at the end of the year.

The full study by The Guardian can be found here.