While the world focuses on limiting the rise in global temperature to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius over the preindustrial average, increasing meltwater from ice sheets threatens the viability of island and coastal nations throughout the world.
The research shows that even the most optimistic temperature targets can lead to catastrophic sea-level rise, which will affect low-lying nations for generations to come.
A team of researchers at the University of Massachusetts emphasize that temperature alone is not a sufficient basis for climate policy. The team focused on the ice sheet that holds the world's largest store of freshwater and which is melting at an alarming rate.
Even if global carbon emissions are reigned in, the physics of the ice sheet will continue to liquify for thousands of years. Because melting ice can slow rising temperatures in the atmosphere, it is possible that the melting ice sheet could allow for devastating sea-level rise.
The same amount of sea-level rise will not be caused by all that meltwater. Some areas in the Caribbean Sea as well as the Indian and Pacific Ocean will experience a disproportionate share of the sea-level rise from the ice in the South Pole.
The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), an organization of 39 island and coastal nations across the globe, is particularly affected by the gap between temperature and sea level. AOSIS countries emit a negligible portion of the planet's greenhouse gasses, but they are bearing the brunt of the world's rising waters.
Shaina Sadai, the paper's lead author, said that temperature is not the only way to track global climate change. I wondered what it meant for climate justice when I knew that the melting of theAntarctica could delay temperature rise. Climate science cannot answer the question of justice.
One of the paper's senior authors was the professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts. Political power dynamics and the history of global inequality were brought to the team's work by Spector. Sea-level rise, which is being felt all over the world today, is being missed by focusing on temperature.
Climate justice impacts of international negotiations and the relationships between science, policy and political power can be better understood by using an interdisciplinary approach to research. They say that we need to listen to the voices of the people who are facing climate change. They hope the research can serve as a model.
The Paris Agreement and Climate Justice: Inequitable Impacts of Sea Level Rise Associated With Temperature Targets is available. The DOI is 10.1029/EF002940.
Journal information: Earth's Future
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