As weather extremes get worse, there is an urgent need to better connect the threat of climate change to ordinary people.
For decades, climate scientists have been warning about the severe impact of climate change.
Yet, despite calls that began years ago for deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, those emissions keep growing, fuelling wilder swings in the weather.
According to Dr Jean-Francois Bastin from ETH Zurich University, people would not get a good grasp about climate change if they just think about 1 deg C, 1.5 deg C or 2 deg C (of warming).
He is the lead author of a novel study that compared the current climates of hundreds of cities globally and the predicted climate for each of them in 2050.
Dr Bastin feels there is still a lack of big, bold political actions to try to change the way we are living on the planet. If scientists can communicate to the population directly, the population might put pressure on politicians
Pressure is already growing from the world’s youth, who have been staging huge climate marches, demanding that governments act to slash greenhouse gas emissions by switching to greener energy.
Certain climate scientists felt the study might not be representative of the actual city-level climate that they are trying to model in 2050, such as Dr Winston Chow, associate professor of humanities at Singapore Management University.
He said that the researchers should account for the regional climate impact and the impact of the local built environment.
Loughborough University’s Professor Robert Wilby said that comparisons between cities are too simplistic. This is because cities make their own climates according to factors such as their unique layouts, building materials and artificial heat sources.
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Source: The Straits Times, 22 July 2019