The UWI’s Professor Michael Taylor among co-authors in renowned Science magazine.

Regional
Headquarters, Jamaica. Thursday, September 19, 2019—Professor
Michael Taylor of The University of the West Indies (The UWI)
is among an internationally respected group of scientists urgently
calling on world leaders to accelerate efforts to tackle climate
change. The scientists are authors of a study (see here:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6459/eaaw6974)
published today in Science
which points out that almost every aspect of the planet’s
environment and ecology is undergoing changes in response to climate
change—some of which are profound, if not catastrophic for the
future.

The
urgency of responding to climate change is front of mind for
Professor Michael Taylor, Dean of the Faculty of Science and
Technology at The UWI Mona. “This is not an academic issue, it is a
matter of life and death for people everywhere, as most recently
evidenced in the Bahamas with the devastation caused by Hurricane
Dorian. People from small island states and low-lying countries are
in the immediate cross-hairs of climate change. I am very concerned
about the future for these people,” said Professor Taylor.

Professor
Taylor’s contribution to the Science
study
further demonstrates the effort by The UWI to lead global climate
action. Earlier this year, the International Association of
Universities (IAU) selected The UWI as its global leader in the
mobilisation of research and advocacy for the achievement of a
climate-smart world.

Fellow
Caribbean scientist and a co-author of the study published in
Science,
Dr. Adelle Thomas of The University of The Bahamas
and Climate Analytics, agrees
and adds “The current catastrophe being faced by The Bahamas is not
an isolated incident. As evidenced by the widespread devastation felt
throughout the Caribbean in 2017, extreme events are becoming more
intense and small island developing states are faced with addressing
existential threats. There must be international coordination and
transformational change to limit global warming.”

The
Science
study
also suggests that reducing the magnitude of climate change is a good
investment. Over the next few decades, acting to reduce climate
change is expected to cost much less than the damage otherwise
inflicted by climate change on people, infrastructure and ecosystems.

Professor
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg from the ARC Centre for Excellence in Coral Reef
Studies at the University of Queensland in Australia, lead author on
the study, explains that “Acting on climate change has a good
return on investment when one considers the damages avoided by
acting.” The investment is even more compelling given the wealth
of evidence that the impacts of climate change are happening faster
and more extensively than projected, even just a few years ago. This
makes the case for rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions even
more compelling and urgent.

Hoegh-Guldberg
further explained the mismatch. “First, we have underestimated the
sensitivity of natural and human systems to climate change, and the
speed at which these changes are happening. Second, we have
underappreciated the synergistic nature of climate threats—with the
outcomes tending to be worse than the sum of the parts. This is
resulting is rapid and comprehensive climate impacts, with growing
damage to people, ecosystems, and livelihoods.”

For
example, sea-level rise can lead to higher water levels during storm
events. This can create more damage. For deprived areas, this may
exacerbate poverty creating further disadvantage. Each risk may be
small on its own, but a small change in a number of risks can lead to
large impacts.

Professor
Daniela Jacob, co-author and Director of Climate Services Centre
(GERICS) in Germany is concerned about these rapid changes—especially
about unprecedented weather extremes.

“We
are already in new territory” said Professor Jacob, “The
‘novelty’ of the weather is making our ability to forecast and
respond to weather-related phenomena very difficult.”

These
changes are having major consequences. The paper updates a database
of climate-related changes and finds that there are significant
benefits from avoiding 2oC
and aiming to restrict the increase to 1.5oC
above pre-industrial global temperatures.

Professor
Rachel Warren from the Tyndall Centre at the University of East
Anglia in the UK assessed projections of risk for forests,
biodiversity, food, crops and other critical systems, and found very
significant benefits for limiting global warming to 1.5oC
rather than 2oC.

“The
scientific community has quantified these risks in order to inform
policy makers about the benefits of avoiding them,” Professor
Warren stated.

Since
the Paris Agreement came into effect, there has been a race to
quantify the benefits of limiting warming to 1.5oC
so that policy makers have the best possible information for
developing the policy required for doing it.

Professor
Warren continued. “If such policy is not implemented, we will
continue on the current upward trajectory of burning fossil fuels and
continuing deforestation, which will expand the already large-scale
degradation of ecosystems. To be honest, the overall picture is very
grim unless we act.”

A
recent report from the United Nations projected that as many as one
million species may be at risk of extinction over the coming decades
and centuries. Climate change is not the only factor but is one of
the most important ones.

The
urgency to act is further emphasized by the vulnerability of
developing countries to climate change impacts as pointed out by
Francois Engelbrecht, co-author and Professor of Climatology at the
Global Change Institute of the University of the Witwatersrand in
South Africa. “The developing African countries are amongst those
to be affected most in terms of impacts on economic growth in the
absence of strong climate change mitigation,” Professor Engelbrecht
explains.

In
closing their joint statement, simultaneously released today across
the globe, Professor Hoegh-Guldberg reiterated the importance of the
coming year (2020) in terms of climate action and the opportunity to
strengthen emission reduction pledges in line with the Paris
Agreement of 2015.

“Current
emission reduction commitments are inadequate and risk throwing many
nations into chaos and harm, with a particular vulnerability of poor
peoples. To avoid this, we must accelerate action and tighten
emission reduction targets so that they fall in line with the Paris
Agreement. As we show, this is much less costly than suffering the
impacts of 2oC
or more of climate change.”

“Tackling
climate change is a tall order. However, there is no alternative from
the perspective of human well-being and too much at stake not to act
urgently on this issue.”

Notes

Link
to the study published in the Science journal:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6459/eaaw6974

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News:

UWI
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land

About
The UWI

For
over 70 years The University of the West Indies (The UWI) has
provided service and leadership to the Caribbean region and wider
world. The UWI has evolved from a university college of London in
Jamaica with 33 medical students in 1948 to an internationally
respected, regional university with near 50,000 students and five
campuses: Mona
in Jamaica, St.
Augustine
in Trinidad and Tobago, Cave
Hill in
Barbados, Five Islands
in Antigua and Barbuda and an Open Campus. As part of its robust
globalization agenda, The UWI has established partnering centres with
universities in North America, Latin America, Asia, and Africa
including the State
University of New York (SUNY)-UWI Center for Leadership and
Sustainable Development;
the Canada-Caribbean Studies Institute with Brock University; the
Strategic Alliance for Hemispheric Development with Universidad de
los Andes (UNIANDES); the UWI-China Institute of Information
Technology, the University of Lagos (UNILAG)-UWI Institute of African
and Diaspora Studies and the
Institute for Global African Affairs with the University of
Johannesburg (UJ).
The UWI offers over 800 certificate, diploma, undergraduate and
postgraduate degree options in Food & Agriculture, Engineering,
Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science &
Technology, Social Sciences and Sport. 

As
the region’s premier research academy, The UWI’s foremost
objective is driving the growth and development of the regional
economy. The
world’s most reputable ranking agency, Times
Higher Education,
has ranked The UWI among the top 600 universities in the world for
2019, and the 40 best universities in Latin America and the Caribbean
for 2018 and 2019.The
UWI has been the only Caribbean-based university to make the
prestigious lists. For more, visit www.uwi.edu.

(Please
note that the proper name of the university is The University of the
West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.)