Víctor Resco de Dios
Lecturer of Forestry Engineering and Global Change, University of Lleida and researcher at Agrotecnio
Gil de Biedma once said, ‘It is only later that one begins to realise that life is a serious matter.’ I fear that something similar is happening to us with climate change. We will not accept its reality until it is too late. Because accepting climate change does not merely mean acknowledging its existence and its anthropogenic origin, but also developing and implementing mitigation and adaptation plans. In the famous Paris Agreement, various countries committed to limiting the temperature rise to 2 °C and to striving not to exceed 1.5 °C of warming. The new article indicates that it is now impossible to stay below 1.5 °C, and that we are dangerously close to 2 °C. The article also confirms that warming in the European Mediterranean is above the global average, having already exceeded 1.7 °C.
It is worth remembering that, with the mitigation plans currently in place, warming by the end of the century will likely be closer to 3 °C than to 2 °C. Be that as it may, we must remember that the climate is not like yoghurt, which has a use-by date. It is not too late, and we can still do a great deal, particularly in the area of adaptation, which is within our control. Let us start preparing now for new wildfires, new floods, new droughts, new heatwaves, new demands on the energy sector, and so on.
It is not within our power to prevent emissions from rising, but we can prepare ourselves. Because, to quote Gil de Biedma once more, sooner or later we will see that ‘time has passed and the unpleasant truth is coming to light’. We’d better be ready when it does.