It’s not too late to save the world from the negative impacts of climate change, says one expert.
That is the message Simon Fraser University science professor Kirsten Zickfeld will bring to Penticton’s Shatford Centre, where she will give a presentation on climate change Friday, Oct. 19, at 7:30 p.m.
Zickfeld is one of 86 experts from around the world selected to write a special report on the implications of a 1.5 C temperature increase for the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Zickfeld says we have the technology and the resources to alter the current course of the globe to environmental peril, but the political will, most notably in the U.S., needs to be more unified.
She says there was a time when former U.S. president George Bush Sr., a Republican, was at the forefront of this issue in the early 1990s. He took climate change seriously and his party was on board with that profile.
“Then the fossil fuel industry became better organized and the Republican political machine went in the opposite direction,” Zickfeld said.
“That machine has led a denial effort against climate change, doubting the results of science and this has become very frustrating.
The issue has become politicized in the U.S. along party lines. If you are a Democrat, you believe in climate change, if you are a Republican, you do not.”
But Zickfeld said the resources to decarbonize the global economy is catching on, even if one of the largest air polluters in the world remains on the sidelines.
“I think we have to realize if we don’t decarbonize, then the cost will be huge.
It is much better to invest in those economies now. Yes, there are challenges moving towards energy renewables like solar and wind, but we have a moral obligation to the next generation and beyond to solve these issues. Otherwise, what are we leaving for them?”
Zickfeld says limiting rising global temperatures to 1.5 to two degrees Celsius to mitigate the potential negative impacts of global warming — sea levels rising, polar ice-packs melting, ecosystems affected, frequency of extreme weather events — remains doable.
While U.S. President Donald Trump has led the climate change naysayers, she notes that many corporations in the U.S. have taken long-term planning steps to address climate change, as have individual states and even individual communities.
“California has the fifth largest economy in the world and has set some very ambitious climate goals, such as relying 100 per cent on renewable energy sources by 2045 and raising fuel consumption standards for vehicles.
Corporations look for a foreseeable path forward in their planning, and are adverse to rollercoaster decision-making trajectories depending on who is in political office. “
Zickfeld says Western nations are largely to blame for climate change becoming an issue, but the countries feeling the impact are smaller, poorer nations such as small island nations that are watching sea levels rise, being subjected to widespread flooding and their water supplies being compromised.
“We need to stop debating about whether or not climate change exists and talk about how we deal with it,” she noted. “The impacts will be catastrophic if we do nothing. We will reduce our ability to cope or adapt to the environment changes that will occur.”
Admission to Zickfeld’s presentation is by donation. The theatre is located at 760 Main St. in Penticton.