By Kim Jong-seok
Collins Dictionary has chosen "climate strike" as its 2019 "Word of the Year," after 2018's Word of the Year, "single-use," which refers to plastic products made to be used only once.
The words "climate strike" have gained popularity as young students take to the streets during school hours to demand actions on climate change, one of the most pressing issues facing human beings.
In the journal "BioScience," about one million scientists from 153 countries warned with one voice that humankind will trigger self-destruction unless we deal with climate change immediately.
Why have the voices of concern about climate change been recently growing louder, even though cries for climate change action had been ongoing over the last several decades?
On Nov. 15, the Korea Meteorological Administration announced a new climate change scenario in its 6th Assessment Report for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This new scenario describes future economic and social structure changes depending on the level of greenhouse gas emissions reductions and the implementation of measures to adapt to climate change.
According to the scenario, the mean global temperature is expected to rise between 1.9 degrees Celsius and 5.2 degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st century (2081-2100), compared to the mean global temperature between 1995 to 2014. Also, the mean global precipitation is expected to increase between 5 percent and 10 percent.
A projected increase in the global mean temperature and precipitation in the scenario was greater than the previous scenario in 2013, which had predicted a temperature rise between 1.3 degrees and 4 degrees, and an increase in precipitation between 2 percent and 5 percent.
This shows, scientifically, that greenhouse gas emissions have been constantly emitted into the atmosphere despite all the global mitigation efforts and concerns toward climate change, and worse, climate change itself is accelerating.
Last year, a scorching heat wave suffocated Korea and this year, unusually, seven typhoons hit the Korean Peninsula.
Bearing these extreme weather events in mind, we need to recognize and accept how serious climate change really is. Climate change is not something in the far future. It is already here with us, changing our lifestyle and making our daily life inconvenient. Our cumulative inaction places a greater burden on future generations.
One of the examples of what climate change is doing to our daily life is changes in the length of seasons.
As climate is changing, summer in Korea is getting longer while spring and winter are getting shorter. Specifically, during the period of 1981 to 2010, spring became one day shorter, summer six days longer, and winter five days shorter, as compared to the period from 1971 to 2000.
In particular, from 2009 to 2018, the summer season in Seoul, a mega city with a population of 10 million, was 10 days longer than it had been from 1981 to 2010.
According to a survey of 1,000 people, when asked if they directly feel some changes in seasons caused by climate change, about 50 percent of the respondents said the length and features of seasons have shifted and these changes are having a negative impact on their quality of life.
The survey also found that people now have more summer clothes than before and they have bought portable fans and air circulators, not to mention air conditioners, to get through the long summer days, and that they are sometimes stressed out about paying a high electricity bill.
Instead of having shorter winter days, we experienced an unusually severe cold wave that we have not experienced before. Heavy snowfall even paralyzed Jeju International Airport on the warm southern island, ruining people's winter vacations. Indeed, climate change has brought changes to our lives and made them more inconvenient.
Climate change and climate risk have already reached deep into our lives. Irresponsible management of the environment during our generation resulted in climate change, which is a horrible threat that could destroy our lives as well as future generations.
Children and adolescents are taking to the streets, claiming that adults should be taking responsibility for destroying the Earth that they will have to live on. I am truly sorry and I am ashamed.
We are living in an era of a climate emergency where we have to think hard about what we can do right now, even if they are small things, to preserve our planet, and at the same time put them into action immediately.
Kim Jong-seok is the administrator of the Korea Meteorological Administration.
 |
The words "climate strike" have gained popularity as young students take to the streets during school hours to demand actions on climate change, one of the most pressing issues facing human beings.
In the journal "BioScience," about one million scientists from 153 countries warned with one voice that humankind will trigger self-destruction unless we deal with climate change immediately.
Why have the voices of concern about climate change been recently growing louder, even though cries for climate change action had been ongoing over the last several decades?
On Nov. 15, the Korea Meteorological Administration announced a new climate change scenario in its 6th Assessment Report for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This new scenario describes future economic and social structure changes depending on the level of greenhouse gas emissions reductions and the implementation of measures to adapt to climate change.
According to the scenario, the mean global temperature is expected to rise between 1.9 degrees Celsius and 5.2 degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st century (2081-2100), compared to the mean global temperature between 1995 to 2014. Also, the mean global precipitation is expected to increase between 5 percent and 10 percent.
A projected increase in the global mean temperature and precipitation in the scenario was greater than the previous scenario in 2013, which had predicted a temperature rise between 1.3 degrees and 4 degrees, and an increase in precipitation between 2 percent and 5 percent.
This shows, scientifically, that greenhouse gas emissions have been constantly emitted into the atmosphere despite all the global mitigation efforts and concerns toward climate change, and worse, climate change itself is accelerating.
Last year, a scorching heat wave suffocated Korea and this year, unusually, seven typhoons hit the Korean Peninsula.
Bearing these extreme weather events in mind, we need to recognize and accept how serious climate change really is. Climate change is not something in the far future. It is already here with us, changing our lifestyle and making our daily life inconvenient. Our cumulative inaction places a greater burden on future generations.
One of the examples of what climate change is doing to our daily life is changes in the length of seasons.
As climate is changing, summer in Korea is getting longer while spring and winter are getting shorter. Specifically, during the period of 1981 to 2010, spring became one day shorter, summer six days longer, and winter five days shorter, as compared to the period from 1971 to 2000.
In particular, from 2009 to 2018, the summer season in Seoul, a mega city with a population of 10 million, was 10 days longer than it had been from 1981 to 2010.
According to a survey of 1,000 people, when asked if they directly feel some changes in seasons caused by climate change, about 50 percent of the respondents said the length and features of seasons have shifted and these changes are having a negative impact on their quality of life.
The survey also found that people now have more summer clothes than before and they have bought portable fans and air circulators, not to mention air conditioners, to get through the long summer days, and that they are sometimes stressed out about paying a high electricity bill.
Instead of having shorter winter days, we experienced an unusually severe cold wave that we have not experienced before. Heavy snowfall even paralyzed Jeju International Airport on the warm southern island, ruining people's winter vacations. Indeed, climate change has brought changes to our lives and made them more inconvenient.
Climate change and climate risk have already reached deep into our lives. Irresponsible management of the environment during our generation resulted in climate change, which is a horrible threat that could destroy our lives as well as future generations.
Children and adolescents are taking to the streets, claiming that adults should be taking responsibility for destroying the Earth that they will have to live on. I am truly sorry and I am ashamed.
We are living in an era of a climate emergency where we have to think hard about what we can do right now, even if they are small things, to preserve our planet, and at the same time put them into action immediately.
Kim Jong-seok is the administrator of the Korea Meteorological Administration.
