Picture this: it is the year 2100, and you are a European Robin (Erithacus rubecula), a small bird with an orange throat that can be found almost all over Europe. Your diet consists of insects, worms, seeds, and fruits that you find in most gardens. Winters are harsh and cold, but you can still find the occasional source of nutrients. Not many insects are still out, but you get along. Luckily, spring is just around the corner, which means a whole new wave of life forms springs up with the sun coming out of hiding. You will be able to spend spring loading up on food for your breeding season so that you can lay as many healthy and strong eggs as possible that will be born fairly soon. Your little chicks will come out, and you will have to nurse them to life, prepare them for the dangers, and get them ready to spread their wings. Eventually, summer turns around, and your offspring should be old enough to leave the nest. After all, you have done all that you can to make them strong and ready to recognize all dangers.
But one thing you could not consider is an invisible enemy, an all-encompassing danger that will soon make your life and that of your offspring almost impossible: heat. Usually, if you were a Robin in 2023, Summer heat should not be something you fear, but now you find yourself suffering. The heat is just too much; we could reach temperatures of up to 45°C during the day in Europe, and it could just be too much for your little Robin's body.
You come back to the nest one warm afternoon in June only to find the lifeless body of one of your children. All the other ones are crying. He did not make it. Cause of death: dehydration due to extreme temperatures.
Now, let us get back to reality. You are not a Robin; it is not yet the year 2100, and you are just at home reading these words. But the situation elaborated before will eventually be the norm. It has already started in some regions of the world, but given current projections, around 2100, this will be the new normal.
You all have heard of the mythical 1.5°C mean annual temperature rise that the global community has been aiming for and chasing since COP21 in 2015. Well, current research from the same organism has come to a jarring conclusion: given the current status quo, we will be sailing past 1.5 °C in major strides and potentially reach +2.6 or +3.1°C in global average temperatures.
The organism in question, the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), has a multitude of tasks, one of which is to assess and report the current state of efforts that countries are making to thrive towards a 1.5°C future. Since Paris, all 196 signatories have been legally bound to cut down greenhouse gases and take concrete steps towards lowering their carbon footprint. The UNEP’s job is to report on this and to evaluate the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in the annual “Emissions Gap Report”. NDCs are submissions by the signatory countries that quantify their efforts towards the goals set in COP21, and to stay well below two °C, they have to be submitted every five years, starting in 2020.
The next due date for countries to report to the authorities is next year, 2025, which also marks a decade since the Paris Agreement. It has not been looking very good…
The newest report by the UNEP comes to dire conclusions: countries need to lower their annual carbon emissions by 42% by 2030 and 57% by 2035 if we ever want to see a world below 2°C. As you may have noticed, it does not seem very feasible to do this in the six years until then. But let us not lose hope just yet.
What does it mean for you, the birds you see in the garden or in parks, and for the whole planetary system? Extreme heat and droughts, rapid biodiversity decline with extinctions of species that we have never seen, and freak weather events, such as the storm in Valencia recently, will become even more present in the day-to-day business. It is now crucial that we, as a global community, take actual and concrete steps towards a better and renewable future.
While this seems all very pessimistic, I would like to leave you on a note of encouragement. It is not too late yet. We are still far away, and lowering carbon emissions by 42% is entirely possible. It will require massive changes in industry and society as well as a redesign of the life we are currently used to.
So, if you were to take one thing from reading this article, I urge you to rethink your power usage and what you need in your life essentially or where you can cut down. Eating no or less meat is already a good effort. Turning off all electrical appliances and other devices that you do not need is also easy. It will require more than that, after all, you are only an individual, but collective action is the solution, and this is the start. What is also required is legislative action: the politicians and people in power, the ones that can change things on a grand scale, are the counterpart to individual action. The results of the recent U.S. elections, as well as others worldwide, create a bad omen and are a sign of a terrible turn for the climate. They must take the necessary measures to lower carbon emissions because they are the only ones capable of that.
So it is up to you, the individual, to make this happen through voting in your local and national (or, when applicable, European elections) and through asking them to make actual change. Go to protests, make your voice heard somehow, and make them commit to real and important change because all future life on earth depends on it.
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