1.5 C warming, coral reefs and saving everything
Usually I’m in biodiversity workshops, but this time, I’m in the THE PLACE that tells us we must not surpass 1.5C warming. This is the focus, the fulcrum from which our next decade will emerge.
The climate convention’s 26th Conference of Parties, popularly called COP26 in cold Glasgow, long-awaited after a year of Covid-imposed delay.
For coral reefs we already know that 1.5 C warming is not in fact ‘safe’ — we’ll lose 70–90% of coral reefs, and we’ve already lost about 50%.
Within the next ten years (well, about 8 years now) we have the choice of limiting coral reef damage to this best scenario, which equates to losing from 40–80% of the world’s remaining coral reefs. By contrast, the next-best scenario, of 2 C warming, means losing 90–99% of all reefs worldwide, or up to 95% of reefs remaining today. (What is next-best about that?)
From the vantage point of COP26, and looking forward to COP35 in 2030, coral reefs really will be the litmus test of whether our countries, corporations and citizenry deliver on our best science and stated ambitions, or show ourselves to have limited interest in long term security and the futures of our children and their children.
Coral reefs are the canary in the coal mine, the warning bell of something worse to come. Because it’s not just about coral reefs … if they fall, an increasingly runaway train of falling dominos — one ecosystem after another (not to mention other aspects of nature as well as economic and social domains) will fall over or crack to breaking point.
If we save coral reefs, we save everything.
Can COP26 deliver that?
