Think 2C of global warming wouldn’t be bad? Think again – leader comment

By The Newsroom
Published 16th Jan 2020, 06:00 BST
The Gospers Mountain Fire rips through a building in Bilpin, New South Wales, last month (Picture: Dan Himbrechts/AAP Images via AP)The Gospers Mountain Fire rips through a building in Bilpin, New South Wales, last month (Picture: Dan Himbrechts/AAP Images via AP)
The Gospers Mountain Fire rips through a building in Bilpin, New South Wales, last month (Picture: Dan Himbrechts/AAP Images via AP)

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After the warmest decade on record, humanity must stop the rise of global temperatures to avoid catastrophic consequences like 37 per cent of the entire world’s population experiencing severe heatwaves on a regular basis.

In yet another sign that climate change is real, happening right now and a problem we must take much more seriously than we currently are, three major scientific organisations have concluded that the last decade was the warmest on record.

The world’s average temperature in each of the last five years was more than one degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels. To some, this may not sound like much, but the effects have already been profound.

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For example, the US Glacier National Park once used to have some 150 glaciers, but is now down to less than 30 of significant size. The famously impassable ‘Northwest Passage’ over the north of Canada claimed the lives of scores of 19th century explorers looking for a shorter sea route between