Until recently, there was hope that global warming could be curtailed if nations and businesses could cut greenhouse gas emissions. The extreme heat that would cause tens of millions of people to migrate from areas that would be uninhabitable might not cause a catastrophe. Rising sea levels might not trigger massive flooding. A new report says it may be too late to prevent these things from happening. The climate conflagration so many scientists have worried about is all but inevitable.
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A new report issued at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change shows that the earth will heat up by 2.1 to 2.9 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. While this cannot be avoided, it is possible for nations to prepare, but these preparations would need to be colossal.
It is hard to imagine how armies of people could be moved from some of the world’s largest cities, which include metropolitan areas in India. It is just as hard to imagine what could be an even larger number of people leaving coastal cities, which are located across the world and include some in the United States. Miami, for example, could be overwhelmed by rising seas. Three million people inhabit the area around Miami. While all these are not in sections of the state that would be flooded, homes and businesses worth billions of dollars may have to be abandoned.
Additionally, most large countries have barely tried to curtain emissions. This is certainly true of China and India. It is also somewhat true of the United States. In India’s case, it has sealed its fate as a country in which relocations of a large number of people may not be feasible. Where can a large number of people in large cities go to be moved inland? Infrastructure to house them and their businesses could not be built on such a scale.
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