Professor Richard Betts MBE, of the Met Office and University of Exeter, is a lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and led the Technical Report for the UK’s 3rd Climate Change Risk Assessment.
He gave a sobering analysis on what would happen if countries didn’t achieve net-zero by the middle of this century – and global warming continued unchecked.
The presentation was part of the first weekend of the Devon Citizens Assembly – a vital part of the Devon Carbon Plan process.
The Carbon Plan is being developed by the Devon Climate Emergency Response Group, a partnership of councils, emergency services, voluntary organisations and business groups.
The group has set a target for Devon to be carbon-neutral (net-zero) by 2050 at the latest.
Hundreds have already contributed to the plan, however some of the issues that need to be solved are so significant that they need further discussion.
And it’s these issues that will be considered, discussed and voted on by the 75-member Assembly before being added to the Carbon Plan – a public consultation will then be held and the final Carbon Plan will be published and adopted next year.
Professor Betts said that of all the greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide was a particular concern, as it didn’t breakdown chemically and could stay in the atmosphere for centuries.
He said: “That’s why we need to stop emissions rapidly because we keep on adding to the problem. Even if we reduce emissions slowly, we are still putting more into the atmosphere.”
He added that as a species we had increased the levels of Co2 by 50 per cent since the pre-industrial era.
“We are now way outside what the earth has seen for 800,000 years, and in excess what our species (has ever) experienced.”
In the Paris Agreement, governments committed to keep global warming ‘well below 2°C’, and ‘make efforts’ to keep it below 1.5ºC’.
He explained why the assemblies’ work and the net-zero goal by 2050 was so important: “Sea levels are rising, and severe weather events are becoming more severe and more frequent.
“The flooding in southern England in 2014 was more severe because of climate change.
“The heatwave in 2018 was made 30 times more likely because of climate change and that lead to 863 deaths (in the UK) more than half of which were attributed to climate change.”
On our current trajectory his ‘best guess’ was that by the end of the century we would be nowhere near the 1.5°C target, and that 4°C was ‘easily quite possible.’
“As well as more flooding we can also expect less water availability…we would get more extreme rainfall but longer periods between rainfall.
“Water vapor is projected to reduce by up to 20 per cent with 2°C warming and 50 per cent with 4°C warming.”
He said that heat related deaths would also increase – currently there are approximately 2,000 every year in the UK.
That number could more than triple at 2°C and reach 13,000 at 4°C: “We would expect to see an increase of wildfire risk from 9% today…up to 26% at 2°C and 50 per cent with 4°C warning.