BY FR. SHAY CULLEN
WHY DO I sound like a prophet of doom and catastrophe when I write about the consequences of global warming? It’s now nearing 1.5 degrees Celsius. In fact, the global mean surface air temperature was 1.54 C above the pre-industrial average from January to September this year. World leaders and scientists set 1.5 C as the dangerous red line at the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) in Paris in 2015 — a figure adopted by 196 countries.
Scientists say 2024 is now on track to be the hottest year in the history of the planet, and the consequences of this are dire and dangerous for all living creatures.
This is all due to human activity: the industrial expansion through the nonstop burning of fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal since the start of the industrial era in 1840. Over 75 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and nearly 90 percent of all carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions come from the combustion of these fuels, most by industrialized countries.
These gases shroud the Earth like a blanket, and the heat from the sun cannot escape back into space. We are roasting ourselves — and everything else on the planet — to death. Millions of people in huge Asian cities, like Manila, Mumbai in India and Lahore in Pakistan, are choking to death because of air pollution. Air pollution was responsible for 66,230 deaths in the Philippines in 2019 alone. Of that number, 64,920 were adults, and 1,310 were children. Most of the pollution comes from burning fossil fuels.
There are millions of good people — climate activists, campaigners and others — sacrificing themselves to protect Philippine forests and rivers, and many are being killed. Their rights and dignity must be protected, as well as the environment, to save the planet from more natural disasters.
Power plants running on fossil fuels must be replaced with facilities using renewable energy sources like wind turbines and solar and geothermal power plants. At last year’s UN Climate Change Conference or COP28, all nations signed a binding agreement to move away from fossil fuels.
As I said before, we have reached 1.54 C — a point of almost no return where one catastrophe causes an even bigger one, which leads to a third or even a fourth; the cycle of destruction continues. In Spain’s eastern Valencia region, a year’s worth of rain fell within eight hours. The floods it caused killed at least 250 people. There is much more to come like that. The Philippines suffers severe loss and damage due to powerful typhoons every year. They destroy homes, fields, roads and bridges; sink ships; and cause crop loss and infrastructure damage worth billions of pesos. The deaths and suffering they cause are immense. (To be continued)/PN
