Mortality From Climate Change 15x Higher In Developing World

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, HOST: Turning now to the heat waves scorching Europe. Croatians are reverting to age-old traditions like this one, smearing mud on themselves as protection from the sun. This as the European Space Agency says we could see some of the hottest temperatures ever recorded on the continent. Heat, it is said, is the silent killer. A startling new report found nearly 62,000 Europeans died in last year’s heat wave, and fear is growing at this year could be worse. Dr. Hoesung Lee chairs the IPCC, the U.N. body tasked with advancing scientific knowledge on the climate crisis. And he sat down with Hari Sreenivasan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARI SREENIVASAN, INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Dr. Hoesung Lee, thank you so much for joining us.

DR. HOESUNG LEE, CHAIR OF THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE: Thank you for having me.

SREENIVASAN: Let’s talk a little bit about the IPCC and the reports that you generate. Reports that are now increasingly more stern in their warnings, more severe in telling people how significant climate change is given that you’ve watched all these reports overtime, throughout your career, what was so significant about AR6, this report in 2023

DR. LEE: Impact of climate change — the most important one, impact of climate change is here. It is already occurring. And everywhere in the globe and all sectors are being affected by these rising temperatures. And we expect that this very minimal increase, in terms of 0.1 degrees Celsius increase —

SREENIVASAN: Yes.

DR. LEE: — and up to this point, compared to preindustrial levels, the (INAUDIBLE) temperature already higher by about 1.1 degrees, but this much of increase created a tremendous impact throughout the world.

SREENIVASAN: Yes.

DR. LEE: For instance, Pakistan last year, one third of this had been country flooded. And it’s not only Pakistan, but many other regions. And it is the human cost impact. And this report strengthened the attribution of this impacts to the human influence.

SREENIVASAN: Help people at home understand why 1.5 degrees Celsius as — why is it an important threshold? Why is two centigrade important threshold? Because most people, when it comes to temperature, at least in the context if they can control it, they think of their thermostat. What’s the difference between 68 and 70 degrees inside my house? Why are we so upset about this? What does 1.5- or two-degrees Celsius mean to the planet?

DR. LEE: Well, let me tell you this, we are familiar about — the long time about the earth as — what, the glacial period. And at that time, the global temperature was about — according to the climate scientists, about five to six degrees lower than the global average of sort of this temperature.

SREENIVASAN: So, we had an ice age when it was five to six degrees lower.

DR. LEE: Ice age. Right. OK. Now — so, 1.1-degree increase from pre- industrial is a significant increase. And first of all, this 1.1-degree increase occurred for the last about 150-year period. And the world temperature changed a lot, but experiencing 1.1-degree temperature increase in 150-year time period, now that’s something else.

SREENIVASAN: Yes.

DR. LEE: It is the race between how fast the global climate temperature increases and how fast the humans can adapt to climate change, how fast the nature, the ecosystems can adapt to climate change.

SREENIVASAN: Yes.

DR. LEE: And I believe the nature loses in this. I mean, ecosystems loses in this race. And also, humans are very much up to the limits to adaptation.

SREENIVASAN: You know, I’ve heard from scientists that what we are seeing today is the result of what we put into the atmosphere 30 years ago. That even if everybody stopped driving cars, if we just completely zeroed out carbon emissions, that this would still be getting worse and worse before it got better, right? So, do you think it’s even realistic that even if we started rolling in the same direction magically at this moment that we can stop ourselves from crossing that 1.5-degree threshold much less the two?

DR. LEE: We will probably see the global — the average temperature of 1.5-degree Celsius emerging in about two decades, depending upon the scenarios of carbon emissions in the second half of this centuries. There can be a possibility to have a temperature first going beyond 1.5 and then turning back to 1.5 at the end of the century.

SREENIVASAN: Yes.

DR. LEE: And then, that’s the scenarios of the lowest emissions scenarios, and then other scenarios, which assumes a much higher carbon dioxide emission is projected to have about between 2.7 and 4.4 degrees of temperature increase by 2100. So, it all depends upon the social economic development, which is linked to the carbon dioxide emissions.

SREENIVASAN: So, if we are facing a world now where 1.1 degrees increase is giving us these wildfires, these hurricanes, these just conditions that are harder and harder to live with, what does the world look like at 1.5 or at two if this is the trajectory that we’re headed on?

DR. LEE: The adverse impacts will be multiple, multiples times higher —

SREENIVASAN: Worse?

DR. LEE: Worse. Frequency, that will be much higher. And the intensity of the impacts will be much higher. So, the — does — an aggregate, the impacts on ecosystems, impact on our lives, it will be much, much worse than what we see today. And that is the key messages of our scientific part of IPCC reports. And therefore, we have to reduce our emissions as rapidly as possible and as soon as possible so that global portal — emissions of carbon dioxide will have to peak as early as possible, but not later than 2025. And right now, the emissions are just growing very fast.

SREENIVASAN: According to the World Meteorological Organization, over the past 50 years, we have lost 2 million people to different types of natural disasters. whether it’s intense flooding, whether it’s massive wildfires, whether it’s typhoons and tornadoes, and hurricanes all over the place, and it’s cost us somewhere around $4.3 trillion. So, my question is, is that if we have that kind of information, if we are not concerned with that significant loss of life or that significant impact to our global economy, what is going to make us listen?

DR. LEE: The impacts of rising temperature global climate have a different picture for developing countries versus developed countries in the developed world. Much impacts can be shown in terms of loss in the value of assets, financial loss. There was some human lost there too. But a majority of loss happening in the developing world is human cost. The human mortality in the developing world is about 15 times higher than the regions with less vulnerable to this worsening climate change.

SREENIVASAN: Sorry. 15 times?

DR. LEE: Fifteen times.

SREENIVASAN: So, the people in, say, developing countries in Asia or Africa or along the coast, they are suffering the costs of climate change 15 times more than the developed world?

DR. LEE: In terms of human mortality.

SREENIVASAN: Human mortality.

DR. LEE: Now, it is not really attainable (ph) to convert that the cost of human mortality into monetary terms.

SREENIVASAN: Yes.

DR. LEE: But just one country or one, you know, group of individuals reducing unilaterally the carbon emissions would not do anything at all. You know, you don’t have global reductions.

SREENIVASAN: When you talk about developing and developed nations, even the money that is coming from, say, the Global North to the Global South has been estimated to be five to 10X less than what is needed. So, when you are in these conversations between countries, and you have a country at the table that’s saying, look, my people are dying at much greater rates, my economy is crushed much more disproportionately than yours is, pointing to somebody across the table who is a developed nation, who is more insulated from some of the impacts. How do you bridge that gap? Because it’s a very legitimate question that they have is, why are we paying so much for a problem that we didn’t help create?

DR. LEE: The climate convention and climate treaty as well as the Paris Agreement have already recognized this — the differences in the impacts. And in fact, the — all the parties to the climate convention and as well as the Paris Agreement indicated that they provide financial and technological support to the developing countries for their mitigation and adaptation effort. Specifically, the developed countries promised to deliver $100 billion per year for this purpose, mitigation and adaptation in developing countries. However, as of this moment, you know, we still need to see that promises to be delivered.

SREENIVASAN: So, how do we enforce that? People sign a check, so to speak, and then when it’s time to cash it, the money is not there.

DR. LEE: Yes. There is no way to enforce such an agreement and it’s all voluntary, you know, payment. And therefore, thus the world will have to then recognize that as long as the delay in action continues, then it is the people suffering a disproportionate share of the impacts. And those people are not responsible ones to have created the climate change we see right now. So, there’s a tremendous inequity involved in this process, and the world understand that, and I believe that leaders in the developing countries as well as developed countries are trying their best to narrow that gap.

SREENIVASAN: One of the concerns, I think, people have with the IPCC reports and the meetings are that there is an opportunity there for countries to lobby on what the final language should be. And I wonder, now that you have seen this process up close, is there something that you would like to change about how that’s done? Because sometimes people feel like, you know what, these — some of these paragraphs or some of these sentences had been changed by countries who have a vested interest in continuing fossil fuels, because that’s where they make money.

DR. LEE: Well, I do not speculate on the intentions of our member governments. But it is correct that the summary for policymakers is negotiated the document. Most governments, as well as between authors in government, but important point is, the science aspect of summary for policymakers is issued by the authors of the report.

SREENIVASAN: So, the science is not tampered with?

DR. LEE: Science is not tempered with, not tempered with at all.

SREENIVASAN: The policy recommendations are negotiable?

DR. LEE: The — how the language will be reflected in the summary for policymakers, every line scrutinized by our member governments in place for the plenary meeting, and every world has to be there by consensus. And in that process, the authors provide a very important role, because they are the guarantor of this scientific integrity of that sentence. So, science will not be compromised at all.

SREENIVASAN: Is there a blueprint that we can devise for how a country should go forward in the future? Is there a way that we can say to countries, you’re not doing enough, that there are consequences to this? You agreed to X, and we see by your actions and decisions whether it’s because you had a new political regime, whether it’s because — whatever reason, right? So, how do you have the critical and important conversation that friends should be able still friends to say, come on, step up?

DR. LEE: Well, the IPCC mandate does not include a policy prescriptive statement.

SREENIVASAN: Should it?

DR. LEE: I think that every country has different goals and different constraints to work with.

SREENIVASAN: Yes.

DR. LEE: And also, different priorities.

SREENIVASAN: But we’re all going to breathe the same air?

DR. LEE: That’s true. But at the same time, they all — every country needs to develop economically, as well.

SREENIVASAN: So, how — your Ph.D. is in economics.

DR. LEE: Yes.

SREENIVASAN: How do you figure out a way that these less developed countries are going to suffer less and have economic sustainability? Because their incentive is to pull themselves up out of poverty —

DR. LEE: Right.

SREENIVASAN: — and to have their basic needs covered.

DR. LEE: Right.

SREENIVASAN: Their priority is not carbon emissions. They’re like, OK, we can get to carbon emissions. I want to make sure my people are fed first.

DR. LEE: Right. For the last 10 years, we recognize that there are 18 countries who are able to reduce carbon emissions, absolute level of carbon emissions, and at the same time increase their growth. And obviously, those countries are in that developed region. And the lesson of this data information is that that performance can be duplicated in the developing world if the countries in the rich part of the world provide financial support, provide technological support to the developing countries —

SREENIVASAN: Yes.

DR. LEE: — to make them achieve economic growth with less carbon footprint. Therefore, the way how the developing countries will achieve their economic development from now on will critically determine what level of temperature the world will have, and there, the developed countries has a key to solve this problem. Developing — let developing countries grow their economy while reducing their carbon emissions. It can be doable.

SREENIVASAN: You are going to be handing over the reins in Nairobi when the next leader is elected. You’ve got kids. You’ve got a grandchild. And I wonder how you have a conversation, when your grandchild is old enough, and they are going to learn about climate change and they are going to learn about what is happening, and what has already happened, and at some point, children have a tendency to look at our parents and say, why didn’t you do more?

DR. LEE: Life consists of many priorities, and thus, life also consists of a bundle of crises. Not only climate crisis, we have energy crisis, food crisis and, you know, public health crisis. So, you have to allocate your resources according to the — you know, the scale of the risks that you face. And every individual makes that decision, every nation makes that decision. And since climate change is a public goods problem, it is the government role that must be emphasized here. It is only the government can reduce the outcome, that can fix the market system created. And let’s see what happens.

SREENIVASAN: Dr. Hoesung Lee, thank you so much for joining us.

DR. LEE: Thank you. Goodbye.