Latest news with #StateoftheGlobalClimateReport
Mint
06-05-2025
- Climate
- Mint
Businesses need resilience in the face of environmental uncertainty
The India Meteorological Department, while defending its failure to forecast the severity of last week's storm in Delhi, explained the difficulty of predicting sudden and extreme changes resulting from the interaction of multiple weather systems from different directions. It emphasized the need for much denser weather monitoring systems and greater sophistication in analytical capabilities to make forecasts at relevant geographical scales and within appropriate time spans for action to be taken in advance. Understandably, assessing the local impact of climate change is a critical challenge for industry, agriculture and everyone else. However, climatic changes are not waiting for India's capacities to develop. The World Meteorological Organization's State of the Global Climate Report released in March highlights record increases in temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, apart from unprecedented sea levels, that translate to a multitude of extreme weather events which afflict us with increased frequency and intensity. The World Economic Forum (WEF), in its 2025 Global Risks Report , places extreme weather events as the second-greatest risk in a two-year time frame; in its 10-year time frame, this moves to the first position, with the top four risks all related to the environment, reflecting perceptions of rapidly depleting environmental and natural resources. Interestingly, both the Global Risks Report and the much broader Edelman Trust Barometer focus on a generational divide. While in the former, the younger generation was found to be significantly more concerned about environmental risks, a hard-hitting finding in the latter report suggests that more than four-fifths of the survey's respondents in the developed world believe that the next generation will be worse off. This number drops to less than 40% on a global average (the figure for India is 66%), but the survey still presents quite a pessimistic view on the whole. The Trust Barometer also highlights the fact that the majority of its survey respondents hold high to moderate grievances against governments, businesses and the rich, signalling a growing sense of societal polarization—a risk identified among the top 10 risks by the WEF for the short- as well as long-term. Respondents with the most grievances also believe that businesses are not going far enough to address societal challenges, in particular affordability and climate change. About 70% of the respondents said they believe that CEOs should address a problem if their business has contributed to the problem and/or if the issue harms customers, employees and/or the community. Against this environmentally and socially volatile backdrop, businesses are faced with a triple whammy. One , they too are functioning in a highly unstable and uncertain climate-impacted world, with disrupted supply chains and resources that are either depleting or becoming inaccessible; two , they are operating without a clear, firm and globally consistent policy framework; and three , the societal licence they have for their operations is increasingly difficult to come by. The risks and uncertainty they face are compounded by what their stakeholders are grappling with. Their response so far has been inadequate, as evident from the sharp decline in trust that people place in businesses. Also challenging is an erosion of employee trust within organizations that their employers would 'do the right thing.' So, how should businesses respond? Under uncertainty, one would typically call for the development of alternate scenarios that would offer various solutions to choose from. However, with uncertainty across the inter-connected spectrum of geopolitics, climate change, social challenges and technology disruptions, such scenario exercises at a business level lose their relevance. Businesses may find it more useful to reflect on the resilience they need to build: First is the question of whether their focus is on the short- or long-term. The actions needed for these time scales would be very different. They must also assess which of the destabilizing factors and the responses needed are of a limited duration. This is obviously not an easy question. In the current situation, many would believe that a new world order is likely to emerge, the shape of which is difficult to predict and the rules for whose functioning would take some time to evolve. It is a question that may require businesses to hedge their bets. More certain and increasingly urgent are the environmental risks identified by the WEF. Juxtapose this with what the Trust Barometer reveals of perceived CEO responsibilities, whether primary or secondary, and it's clear that businesses should urgently start evaluating strategic opportunities to minimize risks. Tackling environmental risks requires a robust and conducive policy framework to be put in place. This places the onus on industry associations to extend their cooperative lobbying with governments to include environmental and social challenges. Last is the opportunity arising from preparedness. Businesses have been notoriously poor in stakeholder engagement—both external and internal—although this aspect is critical for them to deliver the benefits of preparedness. Internally, agility requires that employees—whose trust must be won—are fully informed of the leadership's thinking on likely action pathways and are prepared to play their role under dynamic conditions. Externally, businesses must generate confidence in their ability to emerge as leaders under challenging circumstances through integrity, transparency and effective communication. In general, businesses have no choice but to expect the unexpected in a world of known and unknown unknowns. They must step out of their cocoons and engage much more intensively with their environment to tackle risks and prepare for an unfamiliar future. The author is an independent expert on climate change and clean energy.
Sky News
19-03-2025
- Science
- Sky News
Fresh evidence of global warming - as politicians question climate action
Fresh evidence today has set out how quickly the Earth's climate is changing - in some places so fast it has shocked scientists. The new report arrives as the UK's long-standing political consensus on tackling climate change fractures - with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch questioning the necessary pace of climate action - and as President Donald Trump seeks to scrap US climate rules. The new analysis from the United Nations's World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) today found that 2024 was the hottest on records going back 175 years. Each of the last 10 years has been in the top 10 warmest years on record - a trend that is unprecedented, as previously such a time period has always been punctuated by colder years. "That has never happened before, going back to 1850," said Prof Chris Hewitt, director of climate services at the WMO. The team were also shocked by the way the final months of 2024 remained hot, even as the natural warming effect of the transient El Nino weather phenomenon subsided. The fact the "warmth continued for so long" even the world moved to more neutral conditions after El Nino has been "really quite extraordinary" said Dr John Kennedy, lead author of the WMO's State of the Global Climate Report for 2024. It also found: Concentrations of carbon dioxide - the key driver of global warming - are at the highest levels in the last 800,000 years. Each of the past eight years has smashed new records for heat in the oceans The 18 lowest levels of sea ice in the Arctic in summer have all been in the past 18 years Glaciers have lost more ice in the last three years than in any other three-year period on record The rate of sea level rise has doubled since satellite measurements began. The UK Met Office's Prof Stephen Belcher said the earth is "profoundly ill. Many of the vital signs are sounding alarms". The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the planet is "issuing more distress signals" and urged leaders to "step up" with new national climate plans due this year. Meanwhile, some leaders are going cold on climate action, with President Trump pulling the US out of the Paris Agreement, and Argentina walking away from global talks last year. However, the UK's climate envoy on Tuesday struck a more optimistic note, saying other countries are still talking about how to go green, not if they should. China, the world's largest emitter, installed more wind and solar power last year than ever before, and in 2023 as much solar power as the world combined. But last year's heat drove extreme weather events that forced more people from their homes than in any year since 2008, destroying critical infrastructure, forests, farmland and biodiversity too. In the United States, Hurricanes Helene and Milton brought damage costing tens of billions of dollars and killed more than 200 people. 3:36 Tropical Cyclone Chido killed at least 100 and inflicted costly damage on Mozambique, Malawi and French island Mayotte. It displaced around 100,000 people in Mozambique. Bob Ward, from the London School of Economics's climate institute, said: "This analysis shows that even the United States, the richest country in the world, cannot escape these growing impacts... which are causing suffering for increasing numbers of Americans."
