Climate Special 2: We Are the Meteor

Today, we continue our series on China-US climate cooperation and we do so with a bang, pointing out that when it comes to the next extinction-level event on our fragile planet, we, that is, humans, are the meteor – unless we can collectively muster the political will to change course.

Transcript

We Are the Meteor

Today, we continue our series on China-US climate cooperation and we do so with a bang, pointing out that when it comes to the next extinction-level event on our fragile planet, we, that is, humans, are the meteor – unless we can collectively muster the political will to change course.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on January 22, 2025, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned, “Our fossil fuel addiction is a Frankenstein’s monster sparing nothing and no one. All around us, we see clear signs that the monster has become master.” 

In a keynote speech at an event at the American Museum of Natural History in New York on June 5, 2024, Guterres called for world leaders to take more decisive action on climate change. Stressing that global emissions need to fall 9 percent every year just to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels, he said it is “still just about possible” to pull back from the brink. 

The UN secretary-general’s repeated impassioned plea came at a critical time as the world is experiencing record-breaking heat and more frequent and intense extreme weather events. In the meantime, intensifying geopolitical competition has increasingly undermined global collaboration to combat global warming. Humanity has gone a long way toward realizing that climate change goes far beyond being a scientific issue, now understanding it to be much more of a political, economic and social issue that affects the lives of the planet’s more than 8 billion inhabitants. Looking ahead, humanity still has a long way to go to tackle the issue.

‘Code Red’

The current consensus among scientists on climate change is built upon more than two centuries of research and innovation since the Industrial Revolution initiated the mass burning of fossil fuels, which gradually changed global climate patterns. In 1989, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (or IPCC) was established under the aegis of the United Nations to provide a scientific view of climate change and its political and economic impacts. 

Margaret Thatcher, former British prime minister who was instrumental in the establishment of the IPCC, was the first world leader with global stature to call for international cooperation on climate change. In a keynote speech delivered to the UN General Assembly in November 1989, she referred to climate change as a threat that “has grown clearer than any other in both urgency and importance.” 

In the 1980s, scientists started extracting ice cores from the Antarctic. Air bubbles sealed in the ice provide valuable data on the Earth’s atmospheric CO2 going back 800,000 years. Research on these ice cores shows a clear correlation between the rise and fall of greenhouse gases and historical temperatures. The findings were cited by An Inconvenient Truth. Released in 2006, the US documentary presented by former US vice president Al Gore based on a presentation he gave drew global attention and helped push the issue into the popular consciousness. Al Gore and the IPCC won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

The IPCC has released six assessment reports on climate, concluding that it is “unequivocal” that human activity causes global warming. In its last report released in 2023, the IPCC warns that Earth’s climate system is in “code red” status and that human society must work harder to adapt to the impacts of climate change that are already happening and will continue to escalate. 

Ever since scientists started making groundbreaking discoveries on climate change, their warnings were accompanied by persistent skepticism and denials. But as developments in supercomputers and satellite systems greatly enhance scientists’ capabilities to predict future climate patterns and assess the impact of these changes, scientists have now achieved almost 100 percent consensus. 

According to a study at Cornell University published in the journal Environmental Research Letters in 2021, the scientific consensus that humans are altering the climate surpassed 99.9 percent, as only four out of a random sample of 3,000 studies published from 2012 to 2020 on climate were skeptical about the link between climate change and human activity.

A milestone report released in 2021 by the IPCC titled “Climate Change in Data: The Physical Science Basis,” concluded that it is a “statement of fact” that human activity has caused global warming. Using 14,000 scientific papers to make its assessment, the report highlighted that the five years prior to 2021 were the hottest on record since 1850 and the previous 10 years were most likely the hottest period in the last 125,000 years. The report warned that because climate change results in insecurity in food, water, and housing, which in turn leads to mass displacement within and across borders, it is a driving force for global instability, causing and heightening tensions, prolonging conflicts, and polarizing nations.

The World Meteorological Organization (or WMO) led a multi-organizational compilation of the most recent science related to climate change, publishing it as United in Science 2024. Afterward, the secretary-general of the WMO Celeste Saulo, declared, “The science is clear. Greenhouse gas emissions are rising, global temperatures are shattering records, and extreme weather is wreaking havoc with our lives and our economies. Urgent and ambitious actions are needed to support sustainable development, climate action, and disaster risk reduction.”

Despite many multilateral gatherings of global leaders, businesses, and organizations, progress on a common approach has been contentious. In 1992, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted at the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Under the framework, the first Climate Change Conference of the Parties, known as COP1, was held in 1995 in Berlin, Germany. The COP process has been held annually ever since, with some achieving more progress than others on negotiating global climate governance, and other issues such as finance, adaptation and mitigation. 

In 1997, more than 140 countries signed the Kyoto Protocol, the first international treaty to set legally binding targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions for developed countries. It was ratified in February 2005. At COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, the Copenhagen Accord was signed, which for the first time provided an avenue for developing countries to commit to emissions reductions. 

At COP21 in Paris in 2015, the landmark Paris Agreement was signed by nearly 200 countries. Aiming to limit global warming to below 2°C, with a stretch goal of 1.5℃, the agreement establishes a framework for countries to set and update emissions reduction targets, strengthen climate resilience, and mobilize financial support for developing nations. 

At the last COP29 held in Baku, Azerbaijan in late 2024, developed nations agreed to help channel “at least” 300 billion US $ per year into developing countries by 2035 to support their efforts to deal with climate change. Countries also pledged to work together to scale up finance to developing countries, from both public and private sources, to the amount of 1.3 trillion US dollars per year by 2035.  

Well, that’s the end of our podcast on China-US Climate Cooperation. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Yu Xiaodong, translator Du Guodong, and copy editor Pu Ren. And thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.