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Climate
protests hit the global headlines in 2019
Climate protests hit the global headlines in
2019 (AFP Photo/Marc Piscotty)
Paris (AFP) -
Schoolchildren skipping class to strike, protests bringing city centres to a
standstill: armed with dire warnings from scientists, people around the world
dragged the climate emergency into the mainstream in 2019.
Spurred on by
Swedish wunderkind Greta Thunberg -- virtually unknown outside of her homeland
a year ago but now a global star nominated for a Nobel prize -- millions of
young people took part in weekly demonstrations demanding climate action.
And, like
harbingers of the apocalypse, the Extinction Rebellion movement embarked on a
campaign of peaceful civil disobedience that spread worldwide, armed with
little more than superglue and the nihilistic motto: "When hope dies,
action begins."
Although
scientists have warned for decades about the risk to humanity and Earth posed
by unfettered burning of fossil fuels, in 2019 -- set to be the second hottest
year in history -- their message seems to have finally hit home.
The 2015 Paris
agreement saw nations commit to limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius
(2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels as a way of curbing the worst
impacts of global warming.
A safer cap of
1.5C was included as a goal for nations to work towards.
With Earth
having already warmed by 1C, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) dropped a bombshell late last year.
Its landmark
report in October 2018 laid the groundwork for the string of climate shockwaves
that rumbled throughout 2019: The world is way off course for 1.5C, and the
difference between 1.5C and 2C could be catastrophic.
"The
message from scientists was that each half-degree counts," said Amy Dahan,
a science historian specialising in climate at France's National Centre for
Scientific Research.
It was a
message heard around the world.
For Corinne Le
Quere, president of France's High Commission for Climate Change and member of
Britain's Committee on Climate Change, 2019 was "something new".
"I've
worked on climate change for 30 years and for 29 of those, as scientists, we've
worked unnoticed," she told AFP.
The IPCC report
concluded that global CO2 emissions must drop 45 percent by 2030 -- and reach
"net zero" by 2050 -- to cap temperature rise at 1.5C.
"It's
given us a clear timeline: we have 12 years to act," said Caroline Merner,
24, a Canadian member of the Youth4Climate movement.
The UN last
month said carbon emissions must decline 7.6 percent annually by 2030 to stand
any chance of hitting 1.5C.
On Wednesday
scientists said emissions this year will instead rise 0.6 percent.
- Annus
horribilis -
But while
society and particularly younger generations appear to have woken up to the
threat of climate catastrophe, industry shows little signs of sharing their
urgency.
Greenhouse gas
emissions are once again set to rise in 2019 after hitting a record in 2018, as
extreme weather events -- made more likely as the planet warms -- struck
seemingly everywhere this year.
Cyclone Idai in
Mozambique, typhoon Hagibis in Japan, a deadly, record-breaking heatwave across
much of Europe, wildfires in California and eastern Australia, floods in
Venice... the list goes on.
The threat
posed by climate change became so stark in 2019 that Indonesia, one of the
fastest-growing economies on Earth, decided to move its capital to somewhere
that wasn't sinking.
"We're
seeing climate change with our own eyes," Le Quere said. "Reality is
forcing us to act."
The science
came thick and fast this year, with the IPCC releasing two additional special
reports on land use and oceans, and another UN body, IPBES, issuing a stunning
warning of the threats posed by human activity to the natural world.
Faced with an
unbreachable body of evidence and mounting pressure from the streets, governments
in 2019 started, slowly, to mobilise.
A total of 66
nations now have plans to be carbon-neutral by 2050. The cities of London and
Paris declared official ecological and climate emergencies.
Yet there are
fears meagre progress could be undermined as developing economies appear no
closer to ditching fossil fuels and the United States -- the largest historic
emitter -- looks poised to complete its Paris pullout.
- 'Climate
makes us equal' -
Environmental
activism, of course, is nothing new.
As Alfredo
Jornet, professor at the University of Oslo, pointed out, indigenous peoples
"have been very active for a long time" in protesting against climate
change and deforestation, often to little fanfare.
"It's easy
to be worried about the climate when you have money and privilege," said
Melina Sakiyama, 34, a Brazilian activist.
With the
deadline for countries' Paris commitments looming, as well as a series of
high-profile environment summits in 2020, this year is unlikely to be a one-off
in terms of climate action.
"The
question is how to mobilise this unrest in a way that can lead us to better,
more peaceful, democratic and sustainable societies," said Jornet.
"In a
sense, climate change makes us all more equal. It makes us more capable of
acting together."
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