Guest essay by Eric Worrall
If we do not heed this last chance, I’m sure there will be another last chance in the near future, just like all the previous last chances.
The Observer view on the climate catastrophe facing Earth
Thirty years ago we were warned. Now is our last chance to listen
Thirty years ago this week, the population of Earth was given official notification that it faced a threat of unprecedented magnitude. Emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, spewed into the atmosphere from factories and vehicles burning fossil fuels, were pinpointed, definitively, as triggers of future climate change. Melting icecaps, rising sea levels and increasing numbers of extreme weather events would be the norm for the 21st century unless action were taken, warned the authors of the first assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
…
Three decades later, it is clear that we have recklessly ignored that warning.Fossil fuels still supply 80% of the world’s energy, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continue to rise and global temperatures are still increasing. According to Met Office statistics, there was a 0.14C increase in global temperatures in the decade that followed publication of the first assessment report. This was then followed by a 0.2C increase in each of the following two decades. The world could easily heat by 3C by the end of the century at this rate, warn scientists.
The impact on the world will, by then, be catastrophic. …
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/23/the-observer-view-on-the-climate-catastrophe-facing-earth
Here are some previous last chances for your entertainment (h/t Bishop Hill, Climate Predictions).
New York 1989
The Grandaddy of Climate Last Chances? In 1989 the United Nations gave us 10 years to save the world. WUWT celebrated the 30th anniversary of this 10 year warning last year.
A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. …
Bonn 2001
A Global Warming Treaty’s Last Chance. That teetering edifice that is the Kyoto Protocol gets some emergency repair work this week as delegates from 180 countries gather in Bonn to work out problems that threaten to scuttle the deal altogether.
Montreal 2005
In an open letter to delegates at the Montreal environmental summit, beginning today, campaigner Mark Lynas explains why action on climate change can no longer be stalled.
“I’m scared. For 15 years I’ve watched international progress on climate change get slower and slower, even while the pace of global warming seems to get ever more rapid. With time running out for the global climate, your meeting in Montreal represents a last chance for action.”
Bali 2007
World leaders will converge on Bali today for the start of negotiations which experts say could be the last chance to save the Earth from catastrophic climate change. Bali could be the last chance to avoid the worst effect of global warming, said Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth.
The New Zealand Herald, 3 Dec 2007
Poznan Poland, 2008
The world will “suicide” if it cannot strike a strong climate pact soon, Australian environmental scientist Tim Flannery has warned. Professor Flannery, who is attending a UN climate summit in Poland, expressed dismay at the slow progress.
“Resistance is a suicidal tactic,” the former Australian of the year, scientist and author told reporters in Poland. “This round of negotiations is likely to be our last chance as a species to deal with the problem.”
Humanity is approaching the last chance to prevent catastrophic climate change, according to WWF’s analysis of the latest climate science.The warning comes during UN climate talks in Poznan, Poland.
“Governments in Poznan must agree to peak and decline global emissions well before 2020 to give people reasonable hope that global warming can still be kept within limits that prevent the worst,” said Kim Carstensen, leader of WWF’s global climate initiative.
WWF, “Poznan provides last chance to curb climate change” 5 Dec 2008
Copenhagen 2009 (the real last chance, we really mean it this time!)
The world faces a final opportunity to agree an adequate global response to climate change at a U.N.-led meeting in Copenhagen in December, the European Union’s environment chief said on Friday.
It is now 12 years since Kyoto was created. This makes Copenhagen the world’s last chance to stop climate change before it passes the point of no return, European Union Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas told a climate conference in Budapest on Friday.
Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary-General, has warned of “catastrophic consequences” unless a new international agreement on greenhouse gas emissions is reached.
Climate change is “simply the greatest collective challenge we face as a human family”, Mr Ban said in a speech on Monday in Seoul. He urged international leaders to reach a deal to limit their countries’ carbon emissions at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December.
“No one said the road to Copenhagen would be easy. But the agreement we all hope to reach in Copenhagen next year represents the last chance to bring climate change under control before it is too late. There is progress, but we need to step up the pace. With resolve, cooperation and imagination, we can conclude an agreement at the end of next year, delivering the ambitious global action that is needed.”
Speech by Stavros Dimas, European Commissioner responsible for environment at a Climate Change Conference, 31 October 2008, Prague
…
The Copenhagen summit is the world’s last chance to save the planet from “catastrophic” global warming, according to a major study led by Lord Stern of Brentford, the country’s leading authority on climate change.
Without an international agreement to limit global warming, temperatures are likely to rise by 9F (5C) by the end of the century – triggering mass migration, warfare and world hunger, according to the report.
Cancun 2010
A sense of foreboding is one of the few points of general agreement among the 15,000 participants congregating for the next two weeks on this long thin strip of land, marooned between a wide lagoon and the Caribbean Sea. Jairem Ramesh, the Indian environment minister, sees it as the “last chance” for climate change talks to succeed; Connie Hedegaard, the EU’s climate chief, believes a disappointing outcome would “put the whole process in danger”.
The Telegraph (UK), 29 Nov 2010
Durban 2011
Rev. Dr. Olav Fyske Tveit, who leads the World Council of Churches, says the upcoming climate conference in South Africa is mankind’s ‘last opportunity’ to address climate change. This week the World Council of Churches general secretary, Reverend Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, called the United Nations UNFCCC COP 17 meeting a “last opportunity for the international community to be responsible in addressing climate change”, and called on the meeting to “act now for climate justice.”
Spero News, 27 Nov 2011
…
Durban climate change meeting is “the last chance”. Attended by over 200 countries, this week’s major UN conference has been described by many experts as humanity’s last chance to avert the disastrous effects of climate change.
Together with around 20 000 delegates from nearly 200 countries, Ferrial Adam, the climate change and energy campaigner for Greenpeace Africa, will be attending the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which gets under way in Durban in the next two weeks, towards negotiating a new climate regime.
Doha 2012
Tomorrow: the earth’s last chance with climate change? Tomorrow, the whole world talks about irreversible global warming as this year’s international climate change summit begins. Participating are 195 countries (almost all of the United Nations).
There are two concurrent meetings: the 8th Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol; and the 18th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. They will take place from Monday, November 26, 2012 to Friday, December 7, 2012 at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha, Qatar.
The Examiner, 25 Nov 2012
Warsaw 2013
Is the Warsaw Climate Change Conference a last-chance summit? The Warsaw Climate Change Conference opened on Monday 11th November. After the 2012 failure of Doha, this summit could represent a turning point in the fight against global warming.
“Global greenhouse gas emissions need to peak this decade, and get to zero net emissions by the second half of this century,” announced Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC in a press release dated 8th November. “We have the money and technology, the knowledge and the new economic models to get the job done in time,” she confirmed before describing the next two years as “a critical period to act faster on climate.”
Sustainable Mobility, 14 Nov 2013
Lima 2014
Last chance: Change needed for climate negotiations in Lima 2014. WWF issued the following statement today from Samantha Smith, Leader of WWF’s Global Climate and Energy Initiative, as the UN climate talks drew to a conclusion:
“A repeat performance next year would be disastrous, not just for the progress of these negotiations, but more importantly for vulnerable communities everywhere and the natural world on which we all depend…By the time we get to next year’s meeting in Lima, we urgently need to have political will, real commitments, and a clear path to a comprehensive and fair agreement in Paris 2015, where a new global agreement on climate change has to be signed.”
Paris 2015
Scientists are calling on world leaders to sign up to an eight-point plan of action at landmark talks in Paris. The key element is the goal to limit global warming to below 2C by moving to zero carbon emissions by 2050. The UN meeting in December is “the last chance” to avert dangerous climate change, according to the Earth League.
United Nations 2016
New study says that unless nations ramp up their carbon-reduction pledges before 2020, it will be nearly impossible to keep warming to 2 degrees.
‘Last Chance’ to Limit Global Warming to Safe Levels, UN Scientists Warn
United Nations 3 November 2016
South Korea 2018
Last chance to curb greenhouse gas emissions and climate change to limit catastrophic effects, international panel says
Policy responses to be discussed in December, methods to assess interactions of climate and innovation with economic growth win economics Nobel
Leeds 2019
There’s Still One Last Chance to Avoid Total Climate Catastrophe, Says Study
We’ve had chances. Lots of chances. But humanity has a history of squandering chances, despite everything we know about climate change. Despite everything riding on us addressing it.
Plenty more where they came from.
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Last Chance for the planet? B0ll0cks.
Last Chance for The Guardian? Definitely!
And do not forget Prince Charles of England who said that we have only 100 months to save the climate. Those 100 months ended several years ago.
Jean Meeus
Jug ears is still at it.
Fortunately the Royal Family is crumbling as we watch; Andrew suspected of paedophilia and Harry under the spell of the evil witch.
Philip is a lifelong member of the Club of Rome and welcomes the Proles being wiped out by a plague.
William, however, is being kept nice and shiny, wrapped in cotton wool with the ‘perfect’ Princess wife.
HotScot:
There has been no suggestion that Andrew has had sex with a pre-pubescent child that I have seen. There is a strong suspicion that he had lawful sex with a consenting 17 yo, but that is no shade of paedophilia.
If the age of consent is 18 in the applicable jurisdiction, then it doesn’t matter if the “child” in question is 17 years and 363 days old, legally it’s still considered unlawful sex with a minor (particularly when said unlawful sex was not consensual, as is being alleged) and those who engage in such unlawful conduct are considered to be pedos by most upright (or uptight, depending on your POV) law abiding citizens.
This last chance is a tipping point. If we miss it then it might generate as many as 10 more last chances, which is far worse than we thought.
One more Last Chance and counting….
In Argentinia and Namibia, they wsnt or need some warming.
In Patagonia, they lost at least 100,000 sheep and 5,000 cattle because of deep cold and snow.
https://mobile.twitter.com/1FSVMainz05/status/1297866269094535168?p=v
Sorry, had still the wrong link in memory,
here the correct one
In the image below – shared by Storm Report SA on Facebook – the bold pink arrow shows that the cold front will reach the Western Cape by tonight. It will bring “light rain patches and very cold temperatures.
Mike Berridge explains that “the strong northwesters indicated for the west Cape interior and Namibia”.
They’re probably right – I cannot see teh Grauniad lasting for much longer.
Wolf, wolf!
Fortunately a lot of youngsters can see through the bullshit they are fed at school.
One more(last!!!) time-“Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain”
Sadly the crooks making a fortune out of ” renewables ” are exploiting the useful idiots.
Dire warnings based on the shoddy work of under-par researchers.
We live in the age of dictatorship by third-rate professors.
The next big Last Chance will be in Glasgow towards the end of next year.
Buy your popcorn futures now.
Fear, fear, fear, followed by endless deadline-beating calls to ‘climate action’, all of which pass without ‘catastrophe’ being visited upon us. That’s all we’ve had from this hysterical mob for 30 years. However they’re well-funded so go on and on. They’ll never give up.
The West is desperately in need of a strong leader who’ll obliterate this nonsense with policy roll-outs that slam the door in the face of ‘renewables’ rubbish.
Why start in 1989?
“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” — Harvard biologist George Wald
“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions…. By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.” — North Texas State University professor Peter Gunter
“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” — Ecologist Kenneth Watt
The first Earth Day 1970!
…again this is such a dumb idea to keep saying “last chance”, because when the world doesn’t change the way you want it to at the end of 2020…. (spoiler) it won’t….. what do you say then? where do you go from there?you’ve shot yourself in the foot, good and proper.
What do you say to the people who now think “ok, F@ck it, apparently now it makes no difference what I do”
……no, wait, hang on when we said “last chance”, what we meant was…….. errrrr too late alarmist cretins, words have meanings.
Everyone knows that if you draw lines in the sand, you better have a dam good plan B if that line gets crossed, otherwise your going to look like a chump, and these zealots are looking more chumpy by the day.
The Graudian is prolific with ecological ‘last chances’ as the Rolling Stones are with their ‘farewell tours’.
Fifty years of failed eco-pocalyptic predictions, with a number of them from Paul Ehrlich of course:
https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions
I am at a loss for words to describe the ignorance. Or maybe it is just a lot of arrogance and overinflated egos.
“72 days to save the Earth …
… because that is when the US withdraws from the Paris climate accord, on 4 November.”
I think they mean 71 days, because that is when Trump will be re-elected, thus cementing our leaving the 100% bad science, virtue-signaling, humanity-hating, and western civilization-destroying “Paris climate accord”, thus dooming “the planet”.
In other words, if Trump wins, “it’s over.”
Promise?
What frustrates me is all those celebrities who swear they are going to leave the US if a Republican wins, but never do.
Well, they would but nowhere else wants them either.
At least one did: IIRC Johnny Depp said he would leave the US if Bush were elected, and he did. I can respect that. Just wish more would.
Dale Arden: Flash, Flash, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!
I’m reminded of reminded of the pastors claiming they know the exact date and time of the Rapture. Never happens, of course.
The difference is a pastor who makes such a claim loses followers and donations when his predictions are proven warm. Not so with the acolytes of climate doom mongers. They never seem to even notice. It’s the perfect cult and the perfect gift.
Due to COVID-19 this year’s last chance to stop climate change has been postponed until next year. We can all breathe a sigh of relief.
Reading through the list of exotic locales where they’ve held past climate summits, it’s a wonder they missed such party spots as Davos and Ibeza. I guess there’s still plenty of ‘last chance’s left that they can still get to them.
Could this please be the last final never-to-happen-again chance ?
It’s like the “last and final boarding call” for your airline flight. Ignoring the redundancy, they seem to call out “last and final” about 20 times for each flight.
Last as in LAST does not help ad revenue projections for the following month.
A better way to look at is the ‘Going Out of Business’ furniture store sales that occur every month at some stores.
It’s a new Last Chance, you see. A Last Chance to avoid climate doom. I must say, I still get very excited about it all. I know we have them rather often now, but that’s because of the Guardian’s great goodness, you see.
With apologies to Douglas Adams and Doctor Who’s the Pirate Planet
What newspapers fail to understand is when others provide the same information FOR FREE online, their business model is doomed. Just like photo developing, vcr/dvd rentals, bookstores, record/cd stores. They are never coming back except in trivial nostalgia forms. Newspapers have lost 90% of their book value over the last 20 years. They are as comatose as Kim Jung Un.
And now with a little corona virus booster juice and bandwidths that are 10X faster than just a few years ago, we are seeing a digital remapping of travel (airlines/hotels/car rentals/public and commuter transit), residency (work from home and live in upstate NY rather than Manhattan) and I expect a major restructuring of education as digital curricula are free to everyone around the world. A kid with a $150 laptop can now access K through Grade 12 for a fraction of the cost as a kid in any western country. More medical diagnostics are now being done on line and robotic surgeries with much lower cost and lower error rates.
In short, the digitalalization, dematerialization and democratization of so many things in changing everything. I may as well get my news from a telegraph as wait for a newspaper to show up at the door.
Put it this politicaly correct way.
Its not over until the black lady sings…
I was thinking orca winfrey now her i’d believe.
It should be noted that the whole premise of the article is completely and demonstrably false. In the opening paragraph it states about the 1990 IPCC report:
Emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, spewed into the atmosphere from factories and vehicles burning fossil fuels, were pinpointed, definitively, as triggers of future climate change.
The report made absolutely NO such assertions as to attribution. Even in the 1995 report, the scientific panel turned in a report that stated they could not provide such assertions, and had no idea when they might be able to do so. The politicians running the show eliminated those statements and added a statement — based on a single paper that did not pass peer review — stating:
“the balance of evidence suggests a discernable human influence on global climate.”
Even so, “suggests” is hardly “definitive”, and “discernable” does not mean “dominant”.
“… and other greenhouse gases…”
You mean like water vapor maybe ?
– JPP
Thirty years of Human-caused Climate Change scaremongering. To no avail.