Science shows policy lags behind the reality of climate chaos, but hope still lingers

The scientists behind a new database of more than 400 extreme weather attribution studies have performed an essential service. This piece of work, drawing together every study of this type, ought to galvanise a greater sense of urgency around policymaking and campaigning. It shows that intense heatwaves, hurricanes, droughts and floods have all been made far more likely by greenhouse gas emissions, which trap the sun’s heat and put more energy into weather systems. And it spells out the alarming unpredictability as well as the extent of global heating’s consequences.

Until the early 2000s, when the first attribution studies were published, it was harder to link CO2 in the atmosphere with global heating’s tangible effects. Thanks to research, now we know. The recordbreaking “heat dome” over north-western Canada and the US last summer would have been almost impossible without human-caused climate change. The same is true of heatwaves in 2016 and 2018.

Wildfires in Siberia in 2020 were made 80% more likely by global heating, while 90% of marine heatwaves are human-caused. An increased mortality rate is evident on every continent, with scientists estimating 100,000 deaths each year. Heating was a factor in the California drought of 2012-14 and the super-typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” wrote the poet John Keats just over 200 years ago. When it comes to climate, truth can feel closer to terror these days. But scientists and leaders are right to insist the reality must be faced. Indeed, this is the only way to avoid the most catastrophic outcomes.

Like the historical responsibility for carbon emissions, attitudes and experiences in the present crisis are unevenly and unjustly shared out. Billions of people around the world, and above all in the global south, are caught up day-to-day in a struggle for survival. This doesn’t mean they don’t recognise global heating; subsistence farmers and fishers are more directly exposed to environmental damage than anyone else. But western governments, businesses and people who are relatively shielded from global heating’s worst effects should recognise this as a privilege.

With this year’s Cop27 in Egypt fast approaching, western governments must follow through on their pledges of climate finance to enable a green transition in the developing world. The purpose of attribution science is not simply to warn the world about what is happening, but to aid preparations for what has not happened yet. The most alarming global trend, apart from still-rising emissions, is the speed with which it is already causing chaos. It is no exaggeration to say that this trajectory is not only suicidal but murderous.

But alternatives exist. Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief who delivered the Paris agreement, called last week for a “sprint toward the light”. The alarming findings of attribution scientists can give rise to desperation – but must not be allowed to extinguish determination and hope