Scholars discuss Earth's climate system crisis at Peace BAR Festival

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Scholars discuss Earth's climate system crisis at Peace BAR Festival

Prof. Cho Chun-ho speaks during the fourth dialogue session of Kyung Hee University System’s Peace BAR Festival at Kyung Hee University in eastern Seoul on Nov. 26 under the theme of “The Age of Climate Change: How Can We Survive the Crisis?” [KYUNG HEE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM]

Prof. Cho Chun-ho speaks during the fourth dialogue session of Kyung Hee University System’s Peace BAR Festival at Kyung Hee University in eastern Seoul on Nov. 26 under the theme of “The Age of Climate Change: How Can We Survive the Crisis?” [KYUNG HEE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM]

 
Scholars gathered virtually to contemplate the climate system and discuss what can be done to create a healthier Earth down the road at Kyung Hee University System’s Peace BAR Festival.
 
The fourth dialogue session of the forum, in recognition of the United Nations’ International Day of Peace, was held in Seoul on Nov. 26 under the theme of “The Age of Climate Change: How Can We Survive the Crisis?”
 
Divided into two parts, Dr. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, first gave a lecture virtually on the threat posed by the climate change age and the breaking point at which Earth's system will no longer be able to support its inhabitants.
 
Schellnhuber is an expert in the theory of climate illogical tipping points and has been warning of the horrific consequences of global warming since the early 2000s. He became the first German to receive the Volvo Environmental Prize, considered to be one of the scientific world's most respected environmental prizes. He has published 250 research papers and more than 50 books, one of his major books being “Earth System Analysis and the second Copernican revolution.”
 
He was then joined by Prof. Cho Chun-ho, an atmospheric scientist currently teaching climate change topics at Kyung Hee Cyber University School, for the open discussion. Cho formerly served as the first director of the National Academy of Meteorological Science, and is active in civic groups calling for changes and climate crisis emergency actions.
 
Dr. Schellnhuber started off his lecture by referring to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
 
“In the Paris [Agreement], both as an international agreement and international law, [there was a] decision to keep global warming well below 2 degrees, and there are ambitions as an aspirational goal to try […] to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees,” Schellnhuber said, “which is very, very hard to achieve.”
 
“But we actually can see there's a long term reference point, and maybe [it will] come back to even less than 1.5 degrees later,” he said.
 
He then demonstrated scenarios showing the global mean temperature on a time axis to show major nonlinear changes in Earth's system at each global warming level. This is the analysis of tipping elements in the climate system — a critical threshold that, when exceeded, leads to large and often irreversible changes in the state of the system.
 
“For example, the coral reefs will probably die back already between 1.5 and 2 degrees warming,” Schellnhuber said. “And most importantly, the collapse of the Eastern Arctic ice sheet: If that becomes destabilized, we will have global warming that would be the range of 6, 7 degrees, and, in particular, we would have sea level rise of another 15 degrees.
 
“The message is the following,” he said. “If we hold the Paris lines, if we keep global warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees, some tipping events will have already happened, but the worst of them will be avoided. So the Paris Agreement is a firewall against disastrous global warming.”
 
In order to resolve these issues, Schellnhuber said it is imperative to implement the transformation right away, and he presented solutions to avert a major climate crisis.
 
With the aim of decarbonization, Schellnhuber argued for getting rid of fossil fuels in the global economy. But at the same time, he said, the success of the the Paris Agreement depends on the protection of the existing biosphere carbon sinks, and additional artificial carbon sinks will need to be created.
 
“If we transform the built environment, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, then we will also win the war against global warming,” Schellnhuber said.
 
“If a tree grows, it removes, absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,” he explained. “If you take the wood from the tree, convert it into timber and use it for constructing buildings, and these buildings will last for several centuries, then you have created a carbon sink.
 
“And the major idea is [forming] buildings as a global carbon sink, that you convert our cities that have now been constructed from steel and concrete into […] organic material base construction, then you have created an artificial carbon sink,” he said.
 
According to Schellnhuber, in order to resolve the climate crisis, not only in terms of natural science but also social science, a full interdisciplinary analysis needs to be created. Then, a solution to change the climate crisis can appear.
 
“The idea is to, in one way to protect the climate by building a better environment and providing better accommodation for humanity,” Schellnhuber said. “In my view, this is really a silver bullet.”
 
Due to social distancing guidelines, all sessions from the Peace BAR Festival are held via video conference, which can be livestreamed online (pbf.khu.ac.kr). A wrap-up roundtable session titled “Human Civilization in Transition, Where Is It Headed?” will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. on Friday.

BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]
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