To help us figure out what’s going to happen to our planet climatologically speaking, you can look at the last time greenhouse gas concentrations were as high as they are today. That era, is called the Pliocene.
The Pliocene was 5,3 to 2,6 million years ago. CO2 levels were at most around 400 parts per million back then. We’re at 430 ppm right now, so we’re actually in the process of leaving the Pliocene type climate behind. But here’s the important thing to understand: During the Pliocene, the global temperature was 2 to 3 degree Celsius above what it is right now! In the Arctic in particular, temperatures are thought to have been ~19 degree Celsius warmer than they are now.
Why? It was not the sun, the sun was slightly fainter than it is today. The continents were also in the same place. No, the main reason is believed to be because the Pliocene had a bunch of forest fires that resulted in the emission of all sorts of smoke particles. Those smoke particles are dark colored and as a result absorb sunlight.
Another part of the puzzle is that right now, we’re still hiding some of the warming that’s baked into the system, through toxic air pollution. When we actually get rid of fossil fuels, that air pollution will disappear too, revealing the global warming that’s still being hidden right now. Most of that hidden warming is on land. Estimates are all over the place, but center around 0.5 degree Celsius globally. That’s warming you’re still going to get, even if you would stop all emissions today.
So this is the sort of stuff that’s baked in, at 400 parts per million. That’s why people like Hansen and Bill McKibben campaigned to rapidly reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere to less than 350 parts per million. At today’s CO2 concentration, you won’t keep today’s climate. Even the IPCC’s chair, Rajendra K. Pachauri, said that the real target should be 350 parts per million. [ed MW: and that too was WRONG; even at 350, there were no guarantees of maintaining a stable climate; 300 should have been the real target, but politically impossible as we had already left it too far behind]
The 1.5 degree Celsius target you hear about so much, is NOT a scientific target. It’s a political target, invented by diplomats. Long before the world settled on 1.5 degree of warming, we were warned in 1990 that: “Temperature increases beyond 1.0 °C may elicit rapid, unpredictable, and non-linear responses that could lead to extensive ecosystem damage.”
The 2 degree target was dominant before the world began to realize how much damage we were already seeing at today’s level of warming and moved to 1.5 in 2015. That 2 degree target originates with an economist, William Nordhaus, not with climatologists. These days, Nordhaus goes around saying we might as well have 4 degree of warming, a level of warming that would render large swathes of the Earth too hot for human survival.
There is however, no actual scientific basis to the idea that we can just choose to stabilize temperatures at 2 degree or 4 degree Celsius, which is why years ago I made the following comic to illustrate the idiocy of what Nordhaus is proposing:
We’re all in that car together, the people at the steering wheel are insane maniacs and we’re headed for the shark-infested waters.
Of course our CO2 concentrations will never stabilize around 400 parts per million, we’re already at 430 right now and there’s no reason to expect that emissions will reach zero anytime soon. TotalEnergy expects that by 2050 we’ll still be getting 60% of our energy from fossil fuels, down from 80% today. CO2 concentrations will inevitably rise well above what we see today.
If you want to know what the ultimate committed warming is, from today’s greenhouse gas concentrations, you’re looking at 10 degree Celsius of global warming. That’s what you end up with eventually, as the white ice sheets gradually melt and reveal a darker surface that absorbs more sunlight (heat), while the permafrost begins to release greenhouse gasses on its own. This is a process that takes centuries, but the idea people have, that we can stop using fossil fuels and temperatures will stabilize as a result is nonsense.
No, in reality, we’re now stuck with continuing global warming for centuries to come. But in the short term, it’s very likely to accelerate. A recent study suggests we’re facing 0.5 to 1 degree Celsius of warming, in the next ten years. We had 0.488 degree of warming over the past ten years, so this is simply a modest acceleration of what we’ve already seen.
I know Democrats no longer care. I know Greta Thunberg now has other stuff to care about. But this problem is not going away. And anyone who tells you that temperatures will stop going up once we stop our emissions, is lying to you. Because of positive feedback loops in the climate system, there is no way to stabilize temperatures at 3 degree Celsius.
What’s actually happening is that the Earth is transitioning into a hothouse Earth state because of our actions. This is a process that has only just begun, but will continue to unfold for thousands of years to come. If you wanted to stabilize the Earth’s climate, what you would need to do is suck CO2 out of the air and store it somehow. You would need to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere from today’s 430 parts per million, down to less than 350 parts per million. [nope! 280-300!!]
You’re not going to achieve that. Even global reforestation won’t remove more than 85 ppm from the atmosphere, which means that within two years even global reforestation wouldn’t be enough. There’s no longer any realistic scenario left, in which global temperatures will stabilize during this century.
Let me illustrate what the problem is. Remember how we were warned in 1990 that above 1 degree of global warming, we could expect extensive ecosystem damage? We’re at 1.5 degree of warming now. So where is the extensive ecosystem damage? Well, take a good look at how much CO2 concentrations are rising every year:
Note how there’s a jump in the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere in 2023 and 2024. Why is that? That’s when the 2023–2024 El Niño event took place, which caused a spike in global temperatures. The Amazon suffered a severe drought as a result. That drought turned the Amazon from a carbon sink, into a carbon source. The record jump of CO2 concentrations in 2023 and 2024, was a result of the Amazon ecosystem beginning to fail.
Do you realize what this means? Our ecosystems are beginning to die and as a result they’re beginning to dump the carbon they have been sequestering for us, back into the atmosphere. And none of this is about to stop, even if our emissions suddenly stopped today, because of the positive feedback loops we have triggered. Take a good look, at the other little train we have set in motion:
What you’re looking at, is the Earth’s albedo, its ability to reflect sunlight rather than absorb it.
It has declined, mainly because of the gradual disappearance of snow and glaciers and changes in cloud coverage. The disappearance of snow and glaciers is a delayed process, that takes time to unfold, it continues even when emissions stop. The decline in albedo is equivalent in effect to raising CO2 by 110 parts per million. That’s the train that has been set in motion for us.
Again: There is no climate stability, as long as CO2 concentrations remain above 350 parts per million. Even 350ppm is a generous estimate, the safe target may be as low as 300ppm. [ahhh, there it is.] And since o;nobody has a realistic way to bring concentrations back below 350, let alone 300ppm, there is no stability in our lifetimes. This is just how the climate system works. Politicians want to believe they can stabilize the climate at whatever level they want, but they can’t.
There is no stability at 1.5 degree Celsius of warming, it means your car is slowly rolling down the hill. There is no stability at 2 degree Celsius of warming either, it means your car is rolling down the hill a little faster. 2.5 degree, 3 degree? Forget about it.
So what are the consequences in our lifetime? Well let’s start out with some of the basics. In the summer of 2022 France’s nuclear fleet sat at 40% of its peak capacity. The heat was simply too intense to use the river water for cooling, without killing all the life in the rivers. Now wait 10 years, as global temperatures rise 0.5-1 degree Celsius. Europe is warming twice as fast as the world as a whole, so add 1-2 degree Celsius on top of what we get today. Now add the demand from people’s air conditioning. You get blackouts.
Now try India. I quote:
I’m sure some of you have seen the international headlines or the new UN climate warnings about the heat dome over India right now. The IMD (our weather department) has issued red alerts across my region (the northwest/central belt). Yesterday, a town near me recorded 48.2°C.This is what they’re getting in India, right now. By 2030, 21 cities in India, including New Delhi, are expected to have exhausted their groundwater. There won’t be water coming out of the tap. There won’t be water for agriculture. They’re using up their groundwater faster than nature can replenish it. That’s four years from now.
I want to explain what 48 degrees actually feels like when you live in a developing country, because it is terrifying.
You can’t just “stay inside and run the AC.” The power grid simply cannot handle the load of millions of people trying to cool down, so we are dealing with rolling blackouts. Imagine sitting in the pitch dark in a concrete room that has been baking in the sun for 12 hours, with no ceiling fan, while the ambient temperature inside is still hovering near 40°C at midnight. You don’t sleep; you just pass out from exhaustion.
The taps are running dry because the heat evaporates local reservoirs and water usage spikes. People who have to work outside—street vendors, construction workers, delivery drivers—are collapsing. Even the water coming out of the cold tap during the day is hot enough to literally brew tea.
It feels like we are living on the absolute razor’s edge of what the human body can endure, and it’s only May.
Now try adding 1 degree Celsius of warming on top of what they’re getting right now. What do you think is going to happen? People are going to flee. Not by 2100. Not by 2050. No, within the next ten years, you’re going to have droves of people try to leave India, whether legally or illegally. They’re going to try to leave, in whatever way they can.
The refugee crisis in Europe back in 2015, consisted of 1.3 million refugees, one million of whom were Syrians. Around five percent of Syria’s population of 20 million back in 2015 tried to enter Europe. If 1% of the Indian population tries to flee to Europe, that’s 15 million people.
Now add Pakistan and Bangladesh, which face the same situation as India: Depleting aquifers, sea level rise, overpopulation and global warming. In total, their population will be 2.021 billion people by 2036. If just 1% of their population tries to flee to Europe, that’s 20 million people.
Oh, did you know, the EU signed a deal with India a few months ago, to make migration from India into the EU easier?
You’ve seen the situation in the UK, the conflicts that emerge due to migration over there. If, during the next ten years, one out of every thousand Indians decides to move to the United Kingdom, their former colonial overlord, the Indian population in the country doubles.
Forget about the legal migration for a moment. If your choice is between dwelling in homeless shelters in Europe, or living in a city where it’s 48 degree Celsius, where you don’t fall asleep but collapse from exhaustion, a city without electricity, a city without fresh water coming from the tap, what would YOU do? I would book a plane ticket to Europe and never go back.
The United States has 13 million illegal immigrants, mostly South Americans. How long do you think it takes until they have 13 million illegals from the subcontinent? People will overstay their visa, people will fly to America just to give birth to their kids.
There is no future in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh. The heatwaves are approaching the limits of what a healthy adult can physically survive. The groundwater is being depleted, they won’t have any water coming out of the tap. The electricity grid is not equipped to handle the heatwaves, let alone once the rich start buying air conditioning.
Maybe a miracle happens, maybe they make it through the next ten years without their agricultural production completely failing as they run out of groundwater, without lethal heatwaves, without the electricity grid failing. Maybe they can handle the 49 degree Celsius heatwave, 10 years from now. Wait ten more years, now it’s 50 degree Celsius. Ten more, now it’s 51 degree Celsius. New Delhi, has warmed 2.93 degree Celsius in the past 16 years, because big growing cities are warming up more rapidly than the world as a whole.
At what point do you think things start breaking down? 49 degree heatwaves? 50 degree heatwaves? When do you think people start fleeing for their lives? Want to hear the best part? Once India decides to do everything right, when they stop burning coal, when they stop using internal combustion engines, they will be rewarded with up to 0.7 degree Celsius of global warming on top of what they already have, warming that is currently still being hidden by toxic air pollution.
That’s India for you. Now take a look at Southeast Asia and Oceania. Worldwide, 500 million people depend directly on coral reefs, for food, for tourism and for coastal protection, because the corals break the waves. In Southeast Asia, 70-90% of all the fish people eat come from the coral reefs. Coral reefs are 0.2% of the ocean’s floor, but deliver 10% of fish humans eat.
The coral reefs, are zombies. They’re already dead. Even if you somehow managed to keep global warming to just 1.5 degree of warming, you lose 70-90% of all coral reefs, by midcentury (2050). Gone, not coming back. At 2 degree, you lose 99% of them.
That’s ~500 million people living on small islands, who will need to figure out some other way to survive, within the next 24 years. People whose main protein source, is fish from their coral reefs. What are they going to do? Their economies are going to collapse. Life on some isolated island is affordable because you have tourists visit and because you eat the locally caught fish.
Half a billion people who have to figure out some other way to survive in the next 24 years. If 1% of them decide during the next 24 years that their way to survive is by moving to Europe, that’s five million people. Again, that’s five times the Syrian population that moved into Europe in 2015.
Now try Africa. Africa will have 2.5 billion people by 2050. Make it very simple. We have 2 billion people in India, 2.5 billion in Africa, 500 million people who depend on the coral reefs. All reasonable estimates suggest that by 2050, all these people are going to be in big trouble.
If you have five billion people in trouble and 1% of them try to flee to Europe, that’s fifty million people. That’s fifty times the Syrian population that moved into Europe and 38 times the overall 2015 refugee population that entered Europe.
Why would they move to Europe? They speak the languages. Europe is already multicultural. Europe is wealthy. Europe has a pleasant climate. Where else would they move? China and the Middle East won’t let them in. Africa and India will have enough problems of their own. Russia lies in shambles. Australia has an extreme real estate crisis and hardly lets any people in.
Your only real options to flee, if you don’t want to live in a giant tent city in a neighboring country, are North America and Europe. Australia and New Zealand put together have a population of 35 million people. If 1% of Africans, coral reef dependent islanders and subcontinentals tried to move to Australia and New Zealand, they would double the population of those countries within 25 years. That’s not realistically possible.
So, if you think Europe has a big problem with multiculturalism and immigration right now? Well, wait until 1% of Indians decide they don’t want to live through 49 degree heatwaves without safe drinking water and electricity anymore.
Maybe things get really bad and by 2050, the entirety of Africa looks like Syria did during the civil war, so 5% of the population tries to flee to Europe, just like 5% of Syrians did back in 2015. That’s 125 million people for you. That’s 25% of the EU’s overall projected population. So effectively 20% of your population is African by 2050.
Note: These are not far-fetched estimates. The UN projected 86 million climate refugees for sub-Saharan Africa alone by 2050, back in 2021. But since then, we’ve started to see the consensus shift towards more rapid warming in the near-term, as 2023 and 2024 surprised effectively everyone. And by now, we’re getting serious projections of 0.5-1 degree in the next decade. This is all going to escalate much faster than anyone expected.
But let’s say Eastern Europe decides they don’t want to play along with this and go for the hard approach: They open fire on anyone who tries to enter their countries. Western Europe goes for the soft approach. Now 40% of your Western European population by 2050 is African. The majority of your under 65 population consists of illegal African migrants. How do you maintain a semblance of a functional democracy under those conditions?
Your laws and systems in regards to illegal immigration, were built for today. There are an estimated 3 million people living illegally in Europe right now. Try multiplying that population forty times over the next 25 years, tell me how you’re going to deport them. You won’t have the capacity for it. What you’re going to get under those circumstances, is what you saw in Belfast last night: Citizens deporting them on their own, burning down their houses.
Demographics, is destiny. The numbers don’t lie. Today there are more children born every day in Ethiopia, than in the entirety of the European Union. Ethiopia has more than 100 languages, more than 80 ethnic groups, none above 35% of the overall population. They also have the worst projected impact from climate change for all of Africa.
Where do you think the Ethiopians are going to flee, once their harvests start failing, or the pastoralist tribes start encroaching upon the sedentary tribes? Look at their neighbors. Somalia has been in civil war since 1991, with no end in sight. Sudan is in the middle of a civil war too. South Sudan has the world’s lowest GDP per capita, so don’t expect any help there. Eritrea is a communist dictatorship. Djibouti has a population of one million. That leaves Kenya, which will presumably at some point say “enough is enough”.
So where oh where are the Ethiopians going to flee, once the harvests start to fail? Help me out here. Ideally the destination needs to be wealthy, tolerant, democratic, the climate should be pleasant and there should be programs available that offer housing to refugees, along with ample employment and education opportunities. Can you think of anywhere?
And keep in mind, North America and Europe won’t just be dealing with climate refugees from other parts of the world. No, you’re going to be dealing with internal climate migration too. Decades of drought have caused the Great Salt Lake in Utah to dry up. People in Salt Lake city are now inhaling toxic dust from the lake bed, so they’re fleeing the city. What are they? Climate refugees.
A town in Switzerland was destroyed by a collapsing glacier, so the residents were evacuated. What are they? Climate refugees. The Netherlands plans to destroy a village of 1,100 people, to expand renewable energy infrastructure. What are those residents? Climate refugees. This will perhaps shock people on both sides of the political spectrum, but climate refugees can in fact be white.
The refugee streams you’re going to get as a result of climate change, are unlike anything the world has ever seen in history, but nobody is prepared for it. In fact, most people don’t even have the vaguest clue what they need to be preparing for. Nobody is prepared for what’s going to happen.
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