The legendary financier and philanthropist warns that climate change will precipitate the collapse of our world.
George Soros is worried.
The billionaire and legendary investor fears that our civilization will collapse if nothing changes.
Indeed, you have just sounded the alarm about this catastrophe that is coming if we do not act. The problem or cause that could hasten our world’s downfall is climate change, says Soros.
The rise in temperatures in recent years will have dire consequences for the planet, he warned during a speech at the 2023 Munich Security Conference on February 16.
“Our civilization is in danger of collapsing due to the inexorable advance of climate change,” said the billionaire. “The weather system is broken and needs to be fixed. That’s the main message I’d like to get across tonight.”
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growing urgency
He said the timing is urgent because temperatures continue to rise at a rate likely to exceed the 1.5C warming threshold from pre-industrial levels set by the Paris Agreement.
The current level of global warming is, according to Soros, alarming because in order to limit and stabilize global warming below 2°C by the year 2100, then it will be necessary to rapidly reduce CO2 emissions and also greatly reduce emissions. of other greenhouse gases. . This is very adjusted, especially since the changes already observed will increase, particularly the extremes of temperature, the intensity of rainfall, the severity of droughts, the increase in the frequency and intensity of climatic events that are now rare, as they point out. activists, environmental.
“The message is urgent because we are dangerously close to missing the 1.5 degree limit set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement,” Soros said. “We are already at 1.2 degrees and if we maintain our current course, global warming will reach more than 2.5 degrees around 2070.”
Soros believes that we cannot afford it because then we will have almost crossed a point of no return.
“That would take us past various tipping points, such as the melting of the Arctic permafrost. Once that happens, the amount of money needed to re-stabilize or repair the climate system grows exponentially,” the billionaire warned. “The accelerating pace of climate change will also trigger large-scale migration that the world is not ready for.”
‘Our civilization will be completely disrupted’
To illustrate some of the consequences of climate change that he talks about, such as the rise in sea levels or the melting of the polar caps, phenomena seen by ecologists as irreversible for centuries or even millennia, Soros uses the example of Greenland.
“In July 2022, an extreme weather event occurred in Greenland. It was so hot that scientists could play volleyball in short-sleeved shirts and shorts,” he said.
The billionaire added that: “The melting of the Greenland ice sheet would raise the level of the oceans by seven meters. That represents a threat to the survival of our civilization.”
Starting from the principle that human action contributes to destabilize the climate system, the great donor to the Democratic Party assures that to stop the damage we can no longer be satisfied with focusing on “mitigation” and “adaptation”. That’s why he’s pushing the use of controversial experimental solar technology to stop the Arctic from melting.
It consists of spraying aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight off of Earth’s atmosphere. If some experts recognize that it can reduce global warming, they also warn that this technology can affect the ozone layer.
“Unless we change the way we deal with climate change, our civilization will be completely affected by rising temperatures that will make much of the world virtually uninhabitable,” Soros argued.
He said it was urgent “to reorient our international financial institutions, particularly the World Bank, to focus on climate change.”
This latest proposal comes a day after the resignation of David Malpass, president of the World Bank, who was a climate change denier.
