The World Bank has released a new report called Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must Be Avoided. It is the first major report to acknowledge we are not likely to succeed in keeping temperatures below 2°C warmer. The report discusses how the poorest countries will suffer most from the devastating impacts of climate change and aims to instill a sense of urgency in world leaders.
From the foreword by World Bank President Jim Yong Kim:
“It is my hope that this report shocks us into action. Even for those of us already committed to fighting climate change, I hope it causes us to work with much more urgency.
This report spells out what the world would be like if it warmed by 4 degrees Celsius, which is what scientists are nearly unanimously predicting by the end of the century, without serious policy changes.
The 4°C scenarios are devastating: the inundation of coastal cities; increasing risks for food production potentially leading to higher malnutrition rates; many dry regions becoming dryer, wet regions wetter; unprecedented heat waves in many regions, especially in the tropics; substantially exacerbated water scarcity in many regions; increased frequency of high-intensity tropical cyclones; and irreversible loss of biodiversity, including coral reef systems.
And most importantly, a 4°C world is so different from the current one that it comes with high uncertainty and new risks that threaten our ability to anticipate and plan for future adaptation needs. The lack of action on climate change not only risks putting prosperity out of reach of millions of people in the developing world, it threatens to roll back decades of sustainable development.”
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We can’t afford a 4 degree hotter future