The IPCC cites evidence suggesting that if we allow temperatures to rise from 1.5°C to 2°, the percentage of the world population exposed to severe heat waves in at least one out of five years would rise from 14 percent to 37 percent, affecting an increase of 1.7 billion people. An additional 420 million more people will be “frequently exposed to extreme heat waves,” and about 65 million additional people will be exposed to “exceptional heatwaves,” facing prolonged high temperatures that have only occurred very rarely up to now.9
The IPCC also projects a tenfold increase, to 362 million, in the number of people suffering crop loss and an almost eightfold increase, to 680 million, in the number living with severe habitat degradation if warming reaches 2°C. The number of people suffering increased water scarcity will increase by 184 million to 270 million. The number likely to experience flooding at 1.5° will be double the number subjected to flooding in the period from 1976 to 2005, and warming of 2° will expose an additional 26 to 34 million. The average monthly number of people exposed to extreme drought will rise globally from 114 million at 1.5° to 190 million at 2°.
The report projects that global warming and the food shortages that result10 will increase the rate of childhood undernutrition, stunting, and mortality, particularly in Asia and Africa, and that the undernourished population will be much larger globally at 2°C than at 1.5°. Incidence of malaria will increase, and the geographic reach of the Anopheles mosquito will be extended. Ditto for the Aedes mosquito, which carries dengue fever, chikungunya, yellow fever, and the Zika virus. Also, according to the IPCC: “Most projections conclude that climate change could expand the geographic range and seasonality of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases in parts of North America and Europe.”
The bad news doesn’t stop there. The IPCC projects unprecedented waves of human migration: “Tropical populations may have to move distances greater than 1,000 km if global mean temperature rises by 2°. . . . A disproportionately rapid evacuation from the tropics could lead to a concentration of population in tropical margins and the subtropics, where population densities could increase by 300 percent or more.” If warming exceeds 2°C by 2050, “rates of human conflict could increase.” Going from 1.5° to 2° could increase the numbers of people susceptible to poverty “by up to several hundred million by 2050.” And “populations at disproportionately higher risk of adverse consequences . . . include disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, some indigenous peoples, and local communities dependent on agricultural or coastal livelihoods.”
The horrific wildfire emergency in Australia and deadly flooding in Jakarta, Indonesia, that ushered in the year 2020 demonstrated that for parts of the Earth, the nightmare future is already here, well before the 1.5°C global temperature rise. A 1.5° hotter world, when it arrives, will be an even tougher one to live in, and it appears inevitable at this point, according to IPCC. A 2° hotter world would clearly be catastrophic and must be avoided. The climate policies we adopt can’t simply rely on green technology and high hopes to carry us into the future. They must be designed to directly and reliably minimize the risk of surpassing a 1.5° increase in global temperature. It is far more important to steer clear of a nightmare future than to strive for an idealized one.
THE POSSIBILITY OF A BETTER WORLD
Legislation for direct, rapid, and equitable elimination of fossil fuels, along with ecological renewal that goes beyond climate mitigation, will be keys to achieving the Green New Deal’s vision. Its plans for urgently needed economic and social policies to create jobs, workers’ and union rights and benefits, inclusive economic justice, guarantees of living wages and health care coverage, Indigenous rights, and vision for an end to racial oppression are all much-needed breakthroughs and are crucial for creating a genuinely more just society. The Green New Deal is forthright in recognizing that market forces would be sorely deficient in addressing the climate emergency, and its necessarily ambitious goals for the elimination of greenhouse emissions are achievable if Congress also takes tough action to stop the extraction and use of fossil fuels, by law and on schedule. Keeping fossil fuels buried in the Earth’s crust will complement the Green New Deal’s energy and justice proposals, rather than competing with them.
The promise of a Green New Deal resonates with an enormous and growing number of people. When, in 2019, The Intercept and Naomi Klein presented a seven-minute film called A Message from the Future with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,11 it garnered 2 million views within eight hours of being posted. Written by Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who was sponsor of the Green New Deal bill in the House of Representatives, and the filmmaker Avi Lewis, with animated art by Molly Crabapple and narration by Ocasio-Cortez, it tells the story of the Green New Deal in retrospect, looking back from 2030. After the Democrats won back the White House and Congress in 2020, the film tells us, “We knew that we needed to save the planet, and that we had all the technology to do it.”
There is value in the Klein/Crabapple/Ocasio-Cortez/Lewis film and other works that envision a world that we would like to see become reality, along with policies that will be needed to take us there. Such visions can inspire us to act and not be paralyzed by dread and inertia. But it is necessary as well to envision the ways in which our best-laid plans could fail to keep future generations from falling not only into the 2°C world that IPCC projects, but even farther, into the hell of a 3° or 6° world as foreseen by Mark Lynas in his book Six Degrees and David Wallace Wells in his book The Uninhabitable Earth.12
The Earth we knew in the twentieth century is gone, and it’s not coming back. The necessity to prevent far more catastrophic heating requires us to impose solid limits that minimize the risk of catastrophe. As we accomplish that, we will have to find a way to live within those limits. New energy technology can be useful in helping us adapt to the limits we impose on ourselves, but it is inadequate to the task of restraining society within the energetic, economic, and ecological boundaries that we are compelled to respect.
There is no time for experimentation. Given the emergency we face, climate policy’s highest-priority target must be to drive emissions down to zero in time, without fail. It doesn’t matter whether a realistic target is considered to be 1.5°, 2°, or even 2.5°C; all of them will require immediate, steep annual reductions. If the policies we decide to pursue turn out to be inadequate, it will be too late to try something else. By the time failure is apparent, there will be no action, no matter how strong, that can keep warming within acceptable limits. A direct, foolproof plan is needed, and no such plan yet exists. The Green New Deal is a step in the right direction, but it’s only a step. To prevent runaway warming, the Green New Deal must be paired with legal mechanisms that directly drive fossil-fuel use down to zero, and on schedule. Taking that route will at least improve the Earth’s chances of avoiding the IPCC’s beyond-two-degree future and even more calamitous scenarios.
1
GROWTH AND LIMITS: 1933–2016
“Every day of continued exponential growth brings the world system closer to the ultimate limits to that growth. A decision to do nothing is a decision to increase the risk of collapse.”
—Donella Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth, 197213
No nation in history has done what the climate emergency now requires the United States and other nations to do. We must decide collectively that we will refrain, forever, from tapping known, rich reserves of easily available energy. It remains to be seen if we can manage that. We and other nations have faced resource limits many times before, but they were not self-imposed. Now they must be. Can we, collectively, of our own free will, put permanent boundaries around extraction of potent mineral energy from the Earth? That clearly will be the most difficult step in taking on the climate challenge. Should we take that step, we can prepare to deal with the consequences