Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Following on from his “last chance” warnings in 2015, another 2015 and 2020, Michael Mann wants us to understand that COP26 really is our last chance to address the climate crisis.

World’s climate scientists to issue stark warning over global heating threat

IPCC’s landmark report will be most comprehensive assessment yet as governments prepare for pivotal UN talks in November

Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent
Mon 9 Aug 2021 03.00 AEST

The fires, floods and extreme weather seen around the world in recent months are just a foretaste of what can be expected if global heating takes hold, scientists say, as the world’s leading authority on climate change prepares to warn of an imminent and dire risk to the global climate system.

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Michael Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University, said this would be the last IPCC assessment that can make a real difference in policy terms, before we exceed 1.5C and the ambitions of the Paris agreement.

“Climate change is now causing amplified weather extremes of the sort we’ve been witnessing this summer – droughts, heatwaves, wildfires, floods, superstorms,” he said. “The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle. We see them playing out in real time in the form of these unprecedented extreme weather disasters.”

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/08/worlds-climate-scientists-to-issue-stark-warning-over-global-heating-threat

This is a followup to Michael Mann’s last chance warning in 2015;

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klimaretter.info: Professor Mann, a new climate agreement is to be concluded in Paris in December . Isn’t it already too late for that? Is it still physically possible to limit global warming to a maximum of two degrees Celsius?

Michael Mann: Yes, of course! Admittedly, Paris is probably the last chance to get the necessary emissions reductions off the ground – if we had started 15 years ago, the necessary change in the energy system could have been more gentle. The earth has warmed up by around one degree since the beginning of industrialization, another half a degree is already safe. So it is clear that there is little room for maneuver.

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Read more (German): http://www.klimaretter.info/forschung/hintergrund/19986-qparis-ist-die-wahrscheinlich-letzte-chanceq

Mann’s warning about the 2016 election;

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“This will be a make-or-break presidency as far as our ability to avert a climate change catastrophe,” says Michael Mann, meteorology professor and director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, whose “hockey-stick” shaped graph warned of sharply rising emissions and temperatures.

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Read more: https://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2015/08/14/the-2016-election-is-critical-for-stopping-climate-change

I wonder if Mann will get to issue the COP27 climate last chance warning? He seems to enjoy it.

via Watts Up With That?

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August 8, 2021