This year marks the 30th anniversary of the World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity, signed by more than 1,700 scientists in 1992. Since then, there has been around a 40% increase in global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2020, nearly 15,000 climate scientists from 158 countries added their voices, warning of a climate emergency.

The consequences of global heating are becoming increasingly extreme, yet the consequences and steps to avoid possible linked societal collapse are underexplored.

The 2022 World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency backs up the earlier warnings with hard statistics. Climate change, they say, has increased the frequency and intensity of severe weather events across the world.

This is likely because of a cascade of interconnected processes, including an overall warming trend, changing precipitation patterns, rising sea levels and changes in the jet streams.

Rapid Arctic warming may have made the summer jet stream in the Northern Hemisphere more prone to meandering and becoming blocked, causing heat waves, flooding, droughts and other disasters.

Rather than just being more frequent, some extreme weather events are now more intense, or sometimes occur closer together in time and space. This compounds damage and decreases recovery time. 

We are now regularly seeing events and disasters that previously occurred only rarely.

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Though there has been a disinvestment in fossil fuels and a decrease in their use as a result of the Covid pandemic, this was reversed as the pandemic declined.

Three major greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all set new year-to-date records for atmospheric concentrations in 2022.

Most planetary boundaries that regulate the state of the Earth, says their report, are beyond their safe space.

“The fate of trillions of human beings who will someday exist depends on the choices we make today. The very future of humanity depends on the creativity, moral fibre and perseverance of the eight billion of us on the planet now.”

The report is a call to action.

“We have seen an unprecedented trend in scientists speaking out on the climate crisis. We applaud this trend. When backed by sound and transparent scientific arguments, the potential for scientists to educate the public and speak truth to power can be a driving force for the needed policy shifts.

“Rather than lose hope, we must reduce ecological overshoot and immediately pursue massive-scale climate change mitigation and adaptation. 

“This is the only way we can limit the near-term damage, preserve nature, avoid untold human suffering and give future generations the opportunities they deserve.” DM/OBP