Is humanity’s endgame in sight? Or is this a time of optimism and opportunity to safeguard and transform our future?

As the world celebrated Earth Day on April 22nd, the health of our planet and the life it supports continued to be under a lens. We’re currently threatened by rising temperatures due to greenhouse gas emissions, rising sea levels, and erratic and extreme weather events all over the world.
2022 was another year of deadly and disastrous extreme weather events around the world, fueled in part by human-caused climate change. Populations all over the world were gravely impacted by droughts, floods and heat waves which cost many billions of dollars in loss and damage. The floods in Pakistan, continuous drought in East Africa and the record-breaking heat waves in Europe affected millions of people, drove food insecurity and boosted mass migration. In the US, we've witnessed extreme changes in temperature, incessant rains on the east coast, droughts, forest fires and nonstop atmospheric rivers on the west coast and extreme hurricanes, storms and flooding in the south.

In addition to this extreme weather havoc, the melting of glaciers and sea level rise reached unfathomable levels in 2022, while ocean heat and acidity levels broke records. Despite government commitments to cut back on carbon emissions, the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and methane in the Earth's atmosphere are at their highest modern recorded amounts, and the amount being released annually is at a record level. Not surprisingly, the last eight years have been the warmest on record despite the cooling impact of a La Niña event for the past three years. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the likelihood of El Niño developing later this year is quite high, which can lead to increased heat, drought and rainfall in different parts of the world. El Niño coupled with human-induced global warming will most likely lead to a spike in global heating and record-breaking temperatures.

Clearly, climate change is no longer a distant doom that we have time to contemplate. In March, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the last in a long series of reports, warning that even if we take urgent and effective action on climate change right now, we will continue to face a dramatic uptick in catastrophic events—from droughts to floods to wildfires.

Most concerningly, this report states that humanity's hopes of keeping global average temperature increase under 1.5º C (2.7º F) are now dashed — we are currently on track to blow past this much temperature increase by the early 2030s. Each half-degree temperature increase signifies a substantially greater risk of extreme weather events and "clear-sky" flooding. Currently, without significant action to mitigate climate change, there is also a great risk of average temperature increases crossing 2º C as well.

Climate change is a planetary emergency, and our actions today will dictate what happens tomorrow.

To limit global warming and reach net zero by 2050, we need rapid and sustained emission cuts. Although decarbonization is accelerating, it will take time to make such technology feasible and viable. Another area that we can focus on is improving our relationship with the environment by halting deforestation, restoring carbon-rich ecosystems like wetlands and rainforests, and properly managing agricultural lands. Our ecosystems are the backbone of Earth’s climate, currently absorbing half of all greenhouse gasses emitted by humans. Changing our food habits and tastes and moving towards vegetarianism and veganism will also have a big impact in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

To prevent or mitigate the damaging effects of climate change we also need to replace carbon-intensive technologies with low- or zero-carbon alternatives. Some areas that can offer climate solutions are: renewable-energy generation through solar or wind energy, transport using electric vehicles (EVs), energy-efficient buildings, low-carbon industrial technologies, and environmental solutions for sustainable agriculture. So, we need to increase climate finance and invest more in net-zero innovation that changes how we live, and governments need to support these new innovations with policy changes.

Although, climate change is an existential crisis, climate scientists, engineers, researchers, and innovators are still optimistic about our future because it is also leading to the greatest economic transformations in human history due to the need to connect with nature, move to renewables, change food tastes, develop new innovations, etc. It is not a time to despair, but rather a time for optimism, and of opportunities to safeguard and transform our future.