Amid Grim New Climate Insights, Scientists Appeal for COP29 to Move from Talk to Implementation
A climate crisis protestor urges a science-based approach

Amid grim research showing global warming is happening faster than previously projected, scientists urged world leaders to  move from talk to implementation of global agreements when they meet at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, next month.

Up to 600 million people already live in uninhabitable places, said Professor Johan Rockström, while introducing the 10 New Insights In Climate Science report at a media briefing on Monday.

Methane gas emissions have surged. Rising sea surface temperature is exacerbating destructive and costly El Niño weather patterns and destabilising ocean currents. Meanwhile, the Amazon Rainforest – essential for stabilising climate –  is approaching “multiple thresholds” that could trigger “large-scale forest collapse”.

Methane gas is surging in the atmosphere.

The report synthesises the “latest and most pivotal climate research published over the past 18 months”, aimed at informing the COP29 negotiators and future policy, said Rockström, who directs the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research in Germany. It was produced by a consortium of globally renowned social, natural and climate scientists.

“Our conclusion is that we’ve underestimated the pace [of global warming]. The unprecedented ocean warming, for example, since 2023 has broken sea surface temperatures well beyond anything expected – a sudden 0.2 degrees Celsius jump,” he said.

“The observations we see in the ocean, the accelerated temperature rise in the atmosphere, are early signs of a system which seems to be gradually losing its inbuilt geophysical resilience.”

While mitigation is urgent, so too is the protection of forests and biodiversity “to build as much resilience as possible in the face of the rapidly rising stress due to climate change induced extreme droughts, fires and heat”, added Rockström, who is also the co-chair of The Earth League.

Heightened risk for pregnant women

Pregnant women face huge risks from climate change.

Increasingly, the effects of climate change are being measured by their impact on women and the global South.

“The progress we have made in protecting mothers and newborns over recent decades is now at risk due to our changing climate,” warned Jemilah Mahmood, executive director of Sunway Centre for Planetary Health in Malaysia.

“In a study spanning 33 countries across three continents of the global South, from South America, Asia and Africa, researchers estimated that floods alone may cause over 107,000 pregnancy losses each year,” she said.

“In India, researchers found that when pregnant women are exposed to occupational heat and stress, which affects nearly half of working pregnant women, their risk of miscarriage doubles.”

Meanwhile, research from Southern California found “significant associations” between long-term heat exposure and serious birth complications, including stillbirths, premature births, and maternal hypertensive disorders including preeclampsia and gestational diabetes, she added.

Climate change can reduce the availability of food and water, causing new mothers to travel longer distances in dangerous temperatures, compromising their postpartum recovery. Food insecurity can also result in low birth weight babies and reduce breastmilk production.

Dr Jemilah Mahmood

“These aren’t just statistics. They represent real mothers and families bearing the brunt of our changing climate,”  Mahmood warned. 

Climate change creates a “cascade of risk for maternal health”, with consequences that can span generations.

Research from three South Asian countries also found that just a 1ºC rise in annual temperature is associated with a 4.5% increase in intimate partner violence. 

This is due to “increased heat stress, irritability and aggression” and “increased heart rate, which is directly related to increased heat and dehydration”, said Mahmood.

 “Some physical changes create behavioural changes in human beings that will amplify aggression, and this is much more seen in hot weather,” she added.

Despite the severe impact on women, only 27 out of 119 countries mention maternal and sexual reproductive health in their climate commitments in the nationally determined contributions, Mahmood noted.

COP29: Report on progress

Describing the Baku meeting as a “finance COP”, Rockström said it needs to “shift the $7 trillion per year in subsidies to fossil fuels into mechanisms that allow particularly rapidly developing economies in the global South to afford and get interest rates and get credit worthiness so that they can invest in in the green technologies and avoid investment in coal-fired plants”. 

Professor Johan Rockström

Secondly, scientists have been communicating also with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UNFCCC)  COP reform, he added.

After almost 30 years, a pile of legally binding agreements have been signed to reverse climate change –  the Paris Agreement, a global methane pledge signed by 120 countries to reduce emissions by 30% by 2030, a deforestation agreement, a loss and damages agreement, and the Sixth Assessment Report of the UNFCCC (IPCC AR 6) of 2021 requiring the world to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 42% by 2030. 

“We even have an agreement that all countries in the world signed that we are now phasing out oil, coal and gas, accelerating this decade and following science. So now is the time to shift over into a COP logic where we start reporting on progress, being held accountable, get money on the table and share solutions, meaning sharing technologies.”

Image Credits: Mika Baumeister/ Unsplash, 10 New Insights 2024, Elizabeth Poll/MMV, 10 Insights report 2024.

Combat the infodemic in health information and support health policy reporting from the global South. Our growing network of journalists in Africa, Asia, Geneva and New York connect the dots between regional realities and the big global debates, with evidence-based, open access news and analysis. To make a personal or organisational contribution click here on PayPal.