No Time for Hope: The Climate Catastrophe

Rarely has the pressure to act been so great – it is about survival.

Sunday, 09.01.2021, 21:01: In this minute, 80,220 tonnes of CO2 are being emitted into the atmosphere. That leaves us with 317,803,190,729 tonnes of CO2 that we can still consume before the 1.5° threshold is exceeded. Or: If we continue as we are, we will have exhausted our CO2 budget in 7 years, 6 months, 12 days, 16 hours, 44 minutes and 22 seconds. 

Global warming of 1.5° Celsius: science says this is no longer preventable. Already, since 1850, we have heated the Earth's atmosphere by an average of 1° Celsius worldwide. We can still delay the point in time through drastic measures, but when global warming of 1.5° Celsius finally occurs, when more ice at the polar caps melts and sea levels rise further, entire island groups will disappear into the sea. Coral reefs will die. Entire ecosystems will lose their basis for survival. And we can – we must – prepare ourselves for further and even more intense heat waves like those in Turkey, extreme weather events like those in North Rhine-Westphalia, and droughts like those in California, where in September 100% of the land area was affected by drought, as we have already experienced in the past year.
Global warming of 2° Celsius: The climate tips. A vicious circle begins. As the ice sheets at the poles continue to shrink, less and less solar radiation can be reflected by the ice. The oceans become warmer. The ice melts faster. The heating of the Earth may become self-sustaining; a further rise in temperature is almost impossible to stop.
Global warming of 2.5° Celsius: Sea levels rise by 5 metres. Coasts are flooded; groundwater is infiltrated with salt. At our current emission behaviour, the Earth is expected to have warmed by 2.7° Celsius by 2100 – on average. In Germany, global warming by then will likely amount to 4.6° Celsius. 
Global warming of 3° Celsius: Large glaciers have by now completely melted. Rivers dry up; massive droughts occur. Rainforests disappear. Russia's permafrost soils thaw and release large quantities of methane. The greenhouse gas content in the atmosphere grows drastically; the vicious circle tightens further. Humanity can barely influence the climate catastrophe any longer.
Global warming of 4° Celsius: The USA and the Middle East are uninhabitable. In parts of the Earth, there is water scarcity; people die from heat shock, from rapidly spreading infections, from malnutrition caused by drought and crop failures. In the remaining parts of the world, people suffer from flooding. Metropolises such as Shanghai, Mumbai, Hamburg or New York go under. Storms rage and destroy homes. Mass migration occurs, greater than any migration of peoples the world has ever seen. Civil wars break out over valuable and rare resources. Desperate attempts to halt the climate catastrophe put all of humanity in danger: in so-called geo-engineering, for example, people consider detonating volcanoes with nuclear bombs so that the ash darkens the atmosphere and delays further warming by a few years (and these considerations already exist today, in the year 2022).
Global warming of 5° Celsius: The consequences of heating can no longer be assessed. The only certainty is that many species of living beings will no longer exist at that point. Regardless of whether humans are among them, life as a human will certainly no longer be what it once was.

Not all of these scenarios can be prevented any longer. The 1.5° warming will come. With a great deal of effort, we might perhaps keep it at that. But for that, action must be taken NOW. For that, no new coal-fired power stations must be approved worldwide from now on. For that, no oil and gas heating systems must be used from 2025 onwards. By the year 2030, worldwide CO2 consumption must be only half what it was in 2010. And by 2070 we must live in a carbon-neutral way. In Germany too, the traffic light coalition is the last government that can still pull the emergency brake. There is an immediate need for a radical mobility transition. Coal phase-out must be completed by 2030 at the latest; we must move away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible. This requires pressure. Pressure on all political actors. The Paris Climate Agreement must finally be more than just a loose commitment. We need sanctions. We need binding rules. We need binding CO2 budgets for every single country. Especially for the industrial and post-industrial nations, especially for Germany. If you look at the cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide since industrialisation, Germany ranks fourth worldwide. That means responsibility. Responsibility above all for politicians, but also responsibility for each and every individual. Responsibility for me and responsibility for you.
If we and our children are to have a long, worthwhile life on this planet, then we must adapt our behaviour. Perhaps it is because leading politicians no longer need to care about the future in 50 years. Or because the car lobby is simply much more exciting than a survival strategy for the next century. In any case, it should have become clear in recent years and also in the negotiation of the new coalition agreement that you cannot rely on the federal government when it comes to climate protection. Everyone must help. You must help. As a voter, you can give your voice to climate protection in municipal, state and federal elections. As a citizen with freedom of demonstration and opinion, you can inform yourself, you can argue, you can speak out loudly and publicly for climate protection. It is no coincidence that FridaysForFuture activists in Germany have organised the largest demonstrations since reunification. As a private individual, you can also reduce your consumption of meat and dairy products. You can travel by train instead of by plane and you can refrain from buying imported fruit and vegetables. You can do all of this and if it matters to you to live on an intact earth for a few more decades, then honestly you must do it too. There is no other way. This text is not meant to give hope; it is meant to put pressure on you. On all of us. As Greta Thunberg explained in Luisa Neubauer's 1.5° podcast, hope is often the wrong signal. Hope should be felt by people who cannot change their situation. But when you are at the wheel yourself, hope is not an appropriate feeling. Then you must not tell yourself that everything will be fine. Then you need pressure to behave correctly and take action. So clearly and plainly: perhaps one person can contribute more and another less to climate protection. But at least small measures can be taken by every person, you included. If nothing happens immediately, then we will have no future left on this planet.. Put pressure on yourselves so that it stays at 1.5° Celsius. Pressure may not be a pleasant feeling, but it is more than necessary.