Earth is becoming “increasingly uninhabitable” as the planet continues to warm due to climate change.
A group of 80 researchers from 45 countries is warning this week of global challenges driven by human-made emissions.
Those challenges include surging methane emission levels, continued air pollution, intense heat and humidity, increasing health risks exacerbated by climate extremes, concerns about global climate patterns, threats to biodiversity and the Amazon, impacts to infrastructure, and more.
“This report confirms that the world faces planetary scale challenges ... yet it also provides clear pathways and solutions, demonstrating that with urgent, decisive action, we still can avoid unmanageable outcomes,” the researchers wrote.
These findings, the 10 New Insights in Climate Change, are released annually by scientists at Future Earth, The Earth League, and the World Climate Research Programme. The group aims to provide timely insights to help policymakers and negotiators in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, also known as COP.
The authors said that climate-warming is increasing natural methane emissions, making cuts to human emissions more urgent. Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that is emitted during the production of coal, natural, gas, and oil, and by the agriculture industry and landfills, is the second-largest contributor to climate warming after carbon dioxide. Methane levels are surging, driven primarily by human activities.
“We have enough information about our methane emissions to take action, but more enforceable policies to drive reductions are vital. While reductions in the fossil fuel and waste sectors are most feasible, addressing agricultural emissions is also critical,” the report noted.
The report said that reductions in air pollution have aided public health in several regions. But, at the same time, changes in the amount of airborne particles in the atmosphere have reduced the cooling effect these particles have on the climate. Some particles can reflect sunlight, helping to cool the atmosphere.
“Further reduction of anthropogenic aerosol emissions will reduce health impacts and directly save lives, and is beneficial for climate and the environment,” the report said. “It will, however, amplify climate warming, and can also strengthen precipitation change and extreme events in many regions.”
This could be Earth’s hottest year and increasingly warm and humid weather is making more of the planet unlivable, with 600 million people living outside habitable climatic conditions. With each degree of warming in the future, an estimated 10 percent of Earth’s population will join them. Those in the Global South are more exposed than others.
And, pregnant women, infants, and unborn children are also facing increased risks from climate extremes, like heat and flooding. Those living in high levels of poverty and “entrenched” gender norms that prevent women from changing practices that could expose them to those conditions are disproportionately affected.
In the Amazon, which has felt multiple climate extremes this year, biodiversity and the ecosystem have also suffered. The scientists note some areas are shifting “from carbon sinks to carbon sources,” with “far-reaching consequences” for both regional and global climate.
“Due to climate change, Amazon forests are approaching multiple thresholds (related to temperature, rainfall, and seasonality), beyond which significant ecological changes can be triggered, potentially leading to a large-scale forest collapse,” the report said.
The Amazon, which is home to billions of trees that absorb carbon dioxide, produces 20 percent of Earth’s oxygen. However, hundreds of millions have been cut down down to make room for cattle ranchers. The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List said Monday that more than a third of the world’s tree species are threatened with extinction and the United Nations says species are disappearing 10 to 100 times faster than in the past 10 million years, with three-quarters of Earth’s land altered by humans.
The scientists say critical human infrastructure is also increasingly exposed and vulnerable to hazards, suggesting artificial intelligence could help enhance resilience.
Perhaps most worryingly, the scientists highlighted “heightened concerns” about large-scale ocean and atmosphere interactions, including concerns about more extreme and costly climate patterns and the collapse of a critical system of currents that circulates water within the Atlantic Ocean, bringing warm water north and cold water south.
Recently, scientists alerted that the circulation’s collapse could be much sooner than previously estimated, with “potentially catastrophic consequences” like widespread droughts, floods, and plummeting temperatures in Europe.
“The consequences for global climate, weather patterns, and human well-being would be severe,” the report said.
At the global biodiversity talks underway in Cali, Colombia, government officials from a single nation wear badges with a red streak along the bottom emblazoned with a small but jarring word: “non-party.”
Call it a diplomatic scarlet letter.
That country is the United States. The only other delegation with the same status is the Holy See. All the other country delegates saunter around the conference with badges that sport an inviting green line with the word “party,” granting them access to rooms where the most sensitive negotiations take place.
When I started covering biodiversity a few years ago, I was surprised to learn that the U.S. wasn’t a member of the treaty that underpins global agreements on the issue. The absence seemed especially significant given the scale of the problem: a decline in global biodiversity that’s unprecedented in human history, threatening not only countless species but the well-being of humans, too.
I quickly came to understand that the U.S. government does indeed participate in U.N. biodiversity talks, and in significant ways. It sends a delegation. It gives hundreds of millions of dollars in biodiversity funding to other countries. And, of course, it takes its own actions to conserve nature. But when decisions are being made at the global talks, the United States is relegated to the diplomatic sidelines along with other observers like advocacy and business groups.
“Of course we would love to have them as a party,” said Astrid Schomaker, executive secretary of the treaty, which is called the Convention on Biodiversity. “But the U.S. is here.”
It started differently. In the 1980s, the U.S. played a significant role in drafting and negotiating the biodiversity treaty. The first President George Bush declined to sign it, but President Bill Clinton did in 1993. The next step was ratification, which requires two-thirds approval by the Senate. Republicans, led by Jesse Helms and Bob Dole, opposed it amid concerns over national sovereignty and intellectual property. Democrats said those fears were unfounded, but U.S. ratification has been a long shot ever since.
Nevertheless, U.S. civil society has long had a big presence at biodiversity talks. This year, it’s present “in droves,” Schomaker said. And a government delegation about three dozen strong flew in from Washington and the embassy in Bogotá.
On a panel on Tuesday, Brenda Mallory, chair of the Biden administration’s Council on Environmental Quality, spoke of how the U.S. was “on track” to safeguard at least 30 percent of its land and waters by 2030. The effort began under the Biden administration in 2021 and it mirrors a global commitment, known as 30x30, reached under the biodiversity treaty the following year.
“The biodiversity and climate crises know no borders, and we really have to fight this together,” she concluded, to applause.
But in Cali, where talks opened on Oct. 21, the United States is at a big disadvantage in that fight. For example, the haggling over language in United Nations negotiations is epic. For the U.S. to suggest a word change, it must ask allies to put forward the proposal. And as countries duke it out in the final days over the thorniest issues, the United States will be relegated farther and farther to the margins.
Cellphones help.
“It really does require another level of diplomacy,” said Christine Dawson, director of the office of conservation and water in the U.S. State Department.
Some of the most substantive decisions on the table at these talks relate to how Indigenous people participate and access funding, how countries will come up with the money they agreed to at the last meeting and how to set up a system for compensating countries for the use of digital genetic information.
The United States is focused on all three of those issues, officials at the State Department said. But late Wednesday, the U.S. and other mere observers had to leave the talks on genetic information. It was time for a harder push, and only parties were allowed.
Meanwhile, representatives from another level of U.S. government made themselves known at the talks: the state of California. Officials took the initiative to submit a plan for how the state is implementing its own version of 30x30, which many parties of the treaty have lagged on. On Monday, Wade Crowfoot, California’s secretary of natural resources, held a news conference with tribal representatives who called on President Biden to designate three new national monuments.
Later, Crowfoot lamented the federal government’s status.
“Unfortunately, it conveys a message that the United States doesn’t prioritize this or isn’t doing it, which, over the last four years is actually not true,” he said.
(Secretary Crowfoot’s badge displays the letters “NGO,” meaning nongovernmental organization. That seems odd, but I guess it’s tricky when you represent a regional government of a non-party.)
When I’ve spoken about the United States’ status with delegates and observers from around the world, some point to the fact that the U.S. still participates, but others look down or smirk or shake their heads. They express disappointment or exasperation.
On Wednesday, one delegate for the European Union, Carola Rackete, a leftist member of Parliament, was willing to give her opinion on the record.
“I personally think it’s a scandal,” she said.
In 2024, the ozone hole over the Antarctic showed a notable reduction in size, ranking as the seventh smallest since monitoring began post-Montreal Protocol.
This improvement is credited to ongoing reductions in CFC emissions and enhanced atmospheric dynamics that transport ozone southward.
Ozone Layer Recovery Progress in 2024
In 2024, the annual hole in the ozone layer over Earth’s southern pole was relatively small compared to previous years. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimate that, if current trends continue, the ozone layer could fully recover by 2066.
This year’s peak ozone depletion season, which lasts from September 7 to October 13, saw the ozone hole rank as the seventh smallest since recovery efforts began in 1992, following the Montreal Protocol—a global agreement to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals.
The ozone-depleted region over Antarctica averaged nearly 20 million square kilometers (8 million square miles) this year, covering an area almost three times the size of the contiguous United States. On September 28, the hole reached its largest single-day extent of 22.4 million square kilometers (8.5 million square miles).
The map above shows the size and shape of the ozone hole over the South Pole on the day of its 2024 maximum extent. Moderate ozone losses (orange) are visible amid areas of more potent ozone losses (red). Scientists describe the ozone “hole” as the area in which ozone concentrations drop below the historical threshold of 220 Dobson units.
What Is a Dobson Unit?
• The Dobson Unit (DU) is the standard measurement for ozone concentration in Earth’s atmosphere. It quantifies the total amount of ozone in a column of air from the surface to the edge of space. One Dobson Unit equals a 0.01-millimeter layer of pure ozone at standard temperature and pressure. For example, 300 DU would form a 3-millimeter ozone layer if compressed. Scientists use Dobson Units to observe ozone health globally, providing insight into seasonal thinning and recovery patterns.
Impact of Global Efforts on Ozone Health
The improvement is due to a combination of continuing declines in harmful chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) chemicals, along with an unexpected infusion of ozone carried by air currents from north of the Antarctic, scientists said.
In previous years, NASA and NOAA have reported the ozone hole ranking using a time frame dating back to 1979, when scientists began tracking Antarctic ozone levels with satellite data. Using that longer record, this year’s hole ranked 20th smallest in area across the 45 years of observations.
“The 2024 Antarctic hole is smaller than ozone holes seen in the early 2000s,” said Paul Newman, leader of NASA’s ozone research team and chief scientist for Earth sciences at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “The gradual improvement we’ve seen in the past two decades shows that international efforts that curbed ozone-destroying chemicals are working.”
UV Radiation and Ozone Depletion Concerns
The ozone-rich layer high in the atmosphere acts as a planetary sunscreen that helps shield us from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the Sun. Areas with depleted ozone allow more UV radiation to reach Earth’s surface, resulting in increased cases of skin cancer and cataracts. Excessive exposure to UV light can also reduce agricultural yields as well as damage aquatic plants and animals in vital ecosystems.
Scientists were alarmed in the 1970s at the prospect that CFCs could eat away at atmospheric ozone. By the mid-1980s, the ozone layer had been depleted so much that a broad swath of the Antarctic stratosphere was essentially devoid of ozone by early October each year. Sources of damaging CFCs included coolants in refrigerators and air conditioners, as well as aerosols in hairspray, antiperspirant, and spray paint. Harmful chemicals were also released in the manufacture of insulating foams and as components of industrial fire suppression systems.
Monitoring and Future Outlook
The Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987 to phase out CFC-based products and processes. Countries worldwide agreed to replace the chemicals with more environmentally friendly alternatives by 2010. The release of CFC compounds has dramatically decreased following the Montreal Protocol. But CFCs already in the air will take many decades to break down. As existing CFC levels gradually decline, ozone in the upper atmosphere will rebound globally, and ozone holes will shrink.
“For 2024, we can see that the ozone hole’s severity is below average compared to other years in the past three decades, but the ozone layer is still far from being fully healed,” said Stephen Montzka, senior scientist of the NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory.
Researchers rely on a combination of systems to monitor the ozone layer. They include instruments on NASA’s Aura satellite, the NOAA-20 and NOAA-21 satellites, and the Suomi NPP satellite, jointly operated by NASA and NOAA.
NOAA scientists also release instrumented weather balloons from the South Pole Baseline Atmospheric Observatory to observe ozone concentrations directly overhead. The 2024 concentration reached its lowest value of 109 Dobson units on October 5. The lowest value ever recorded over the South Pole was 92 Dobson units in October 2006.
NASA and NOAA satellite observations of ozone concentrations cover the entire ozone hole, which can produce a slightly smaller value for the lowest Dobson unit measurement.
“That is well below the 225 Dobson units that was typical of the ozone cover above the Antarctic in 1979,” said NOAA research chemist Bryan Johnson. “So, there’s still a long way to go before atmospheric ozone is back to the levels before the advent of widespread CFC pollution.”
Alberta’s United Conservative Party has passed a resolution to rebrand carbon dioxide — the chief gas whose overabundance in Earth’s atmosphere is causing the climate emergency — in a brazen display of climate science denial that harkens back to the 1990s fossil fuel industry playbook.
Resolution 12, which falls under the “environmental stewardship and emissions reduction” area of the policy discussion, will “recognize the importance of CO2 to life and Alberta’s prosperity.”
In approving the resolution, the UCP resolved to abandon the province’s net zero targets, remove the designation of CO2 as a pollutant, and further “recognize that CO2 is a foundational nutrient for all life on Earth.”
“We must prioritize policies that protect our economy and our way of life. CO2 is an essential nutrient for mass, driving growth and boosting plant production. According to the CO2 Coalition, higher CO2 levels have led to healthier crops and improved food security worldwide,” said a UCP member speaking in favour of the policy who cited the notorious CO2 Coalition.
The resolution passed by a wide majority.
A member who spoke against the bill, saying that just like like someone can drink too much water and experience water poisoning, too much CO2 can be bad. He was booed by the crowd.
The policy discussion took place in Red Deer, Alberta, where 6,085 UCP members and observers debated 33 policy resolutions at their annual general meeting. Earlier in the day, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith pledged to “triple down” on conservative priorities, including further expanding oil production and attacking Canadian climate policies.
As several outlets have reported previously, Resolution 12 flies in the face of the scientific consensus on climate change, and the party’s rationale for the resolution states a widely debunked claim that “the Earth needs more CO2 to support life and to increase plant yields.”
Carbon dioxide is the gas principally responsible for exacerbating the greenhouse effect, the consequence of which is global warming. Whereas carbon is a foundational building block of life on Earth, carbon dioxide is an asphyxiating gas whose atmospheric proportions are so high they’re disrupting the normal function of the carbon cycle.
The resolution was submitted by the members of the legislative assembly (MLA) representing the provincial ridings of Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock (Glenn van Dijken), and Red Deer-South (Jason Stephan).
The argument that carbon dioxide is a “gas of life” has been a common yet easily refutable talking point popularized by climate change deniers and other right-wing extremists. One such group, the anti-wind energy group Wind Concerns, referred to carbon dioxide as a “gas of life” in an interview with DeSmog last year. Their leader, Mark Mallett, took credit for contributing to the anti-renewable energy moratorium instituted by Alberta UCP Premier Danielle Smith.
Climate scientists have long confirmed that increased CO2 in the atmosphere does not, as climate change deniers insist, create better growing conditions for plants.
The argument that carbon dioxide is beneficial for the environment appears to have first been made by the Greening Earth Society (GES) in the mid-late 1990s. GES was a creation of the Western Fuels Association, and it was later determined the two groups were one and the same. GES published the World Climate Report, a non-academic and non-peer-reviewed journal that served as a platform for climate change denial. They were transparent in acknowledging their funding from fossil fuel companies, and appear to have originated several talking points now common amongst climate change deniers, including those that advocate for increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, which would result in faster plant growth and greater agricultural yields.
In the “rationale” section of the resolution, the United Conservative Party document argues that “CO2 is a nutrient foundational to all life on Earth.”
While plants need both light and carbon dioxide to thrive, the over-supply of CO2 in recent decades is leading to plants being deprived of their nutrients. One biologist was quoted in a 2017 Politico article describing this as akin to “the greatest injection of carbohydrates into the biosphere in human history,” and that injection is diluting the nutrients in the food supply.
While the resolution notes that the “carbon cycle is a biological necessity,” it doesn’t appear the resolution’s sponsors are aware that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere throws the carbon cycle off balance. This is precisely what’s causing the climate emergency: too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere combined with the destruction of natural carbon storage is destroying the carbon cycle as we know it. The proposed resolution is as contradictory as it is scientifically illiterate.
The resolution also states that current CO2 levels are around 420 PPM, which is described as being “near the lowest level in over 1000 years.” Where this idea comes from is not clear, but it is not supported by verifiable scientific evidence. To the contrary, CO2 levels were 34 percent lower than today in the year 1024, at about 280 PPM. CO2 levels have climbed steadily since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, though they have grown most aggressively since 1950. NASA estimates that, despite wide fluctuations over time, CO2 levels had not exceeded 300 PPM over the last 800,000 years, but have stayed above that level since 1950.
The argument that more CO2 will support life, increase yields, and “contribute to the health and prosperity of all Albertans” — as stated in the resolution — is not supported by scientific evidence. The opposite is a far likelier outcome. As the principal driver of the climate crisis and global warming, increasing CO2 levels will exacerbate droughts, wildfires, and floods, among other disasters, in turn resulting in loss of life and major disruptions to global supply chains. The consequent economic disturbances and their aftereffects will worsen the affordability crisis and result in increasingly negative economic outcomes for all, not just Albertans. Rather than stimulate Alberta’s agricultural sector, climate change will destroy it, and the evidence this is already happening is quite clear.
Another policy resolution is focused on the provincial government’s “scrap the cap” program. The policy builds on a previous resolution to repeal the carbon tax and instead: “Prohibit any consumer carbon tax or carbon pricing scheme or carbon cap and trade system from being implemented in Alberta.”
The resolution also proposes to support “any federal or interprovincial government’s efforts to “axe the tax” (the federal conservative campaign) by eliminating the federal carbon pricing backstop from being imposed on Albertans and Canadians.”
Other resolutions over the weekend have focused on print-based identification, and a requirement for in-person voting “to deal with all the voter fraud.”