Opinion | In a gradually heating earth…

We’ve reached the 1.5C temperature rise we agreed to avoid to stop climate change. Do I need to say more? Climate change is not waiting. We need action. Now. Illustration by YANA SAMOYLOVA, Illustrator

So, we’ve reached a 1.5 Celsius (C) temperature rise for 12 consecutive months. 

Some of you might remember this number from the Paris Agreement in 2015, where multiple countries agreed to do something about climate change. The agreement states that the countries will remain at the 1.5C threshold to avoid catastrophic consequences of climate change. 

So, what does it mean that the temperatures rose to that point for 12 months in a row? Is the Paris Agreement broken?

Well, not quite. 

While the Paris Agreement does state that the goal is to remain below the 1.5C threshold, the fact that the temperatures have been above that for 12 months doesn’t necessarily mean that we have permanently breached the limit. For that, they would need to remain consistently above the threshold for at least a few years. 

It does, however, signal that we are running out of time. 

Emilia Cuevas Diaz, Opinions Editor

While the increase in temperature doesn’t signal a broken Paris Agreement, many countries who signed it are projected to surpass the 1.5C threshold by 2030. 

There is a map on the Climate Action Tracker website. It tracks the actions of each country's government regarding climate change and measures it with the Paris Agreement. Every country on the map is color-coded. Black means “critically insufficient,” red “highly insufficient,” orange “insufficient” and yellow “sufficient.” Green is used for “1.5C Paris Agreement Compatible.”

There is no green on the map. Right now, the United States is coded orange.

The temperature is rising. And the governments of the world are still not doing nearly enough to fix it. In fact, many countries seem to be going backward.

The truth of the matter is that we can’t fix this problem on our own. I mean, sure, doing things like turning off the heating and the air conditioning when you’re not home, using paper straws or taking five-minute showers definitely helps. But without government programs to transition, offsetting your own carbon footprint is difficult. How am I supposed to bike to work every day in a city that is mostly highways? How am I supposed to get around without a car when public transportation doesn’t stop anywhere near where I need to go?

And even then, no matter how many times you turn off your lights when you leave your home, the carbon emissions you stop contributing will never hold a candle to the tons of carbon emission that a company emits in an hour.

I don’t mean to sound like a glass-empty kinda person, because anything helps. Contributing to saving the environment in any way is huge. But at the end of the day, we can’t save our planet without major restructuring and government regulations.

According to the Carbon Majors Report, 100 companies have been responsible for 71% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions since 1988. 

We need governments that restrict these companies. We need governments that regulate their activities. We need laws that make sure they are not allowed to destroy the earth in the name of profit.

We need governments to support and sponsor green initiatives. We need a major shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy. We need to be able to hold companies accountable for their contributions to global warming. We need to stop deforestation. We need, we need, we need…

We need so much more action to fight climate change than we are getting. And we need it on a far bigger scale. 

We need more than what we have. And we need it now. Our planet will not wait for the stars to align. Our planet will not wait for saving it to be politically beneficial. Our planet will not wait for the green alternatives to be more profitable.

Saving our planet needs to be a priority.

There’s a quote that I think about a lot whenever the topic of climate change comes up: “In a gradually heating bathtub, you’d be boiled to death before you know it.”

And in a gradually heating earth…what happens?