Weather Forecasters Warn of Impending Danger as US Climate Skeptics Upend UN Climate Summit
KATOWICE, Poland—TV weather forecasters who understand the potential dangers of climate change are well-positioned to educate the public and spur them to take action, participants said in a panel discussion at the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held here earlier this month.
A major theme at the conference—widely known as COP24—was that severe remedial measures are needed to mitigate rising levels of carbon dioxide emissions before severe weather conditions can take hold.
The meeting, which ran from Dec. 2 to Dec. 14, took its inspiration from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, which released a new report in October that concluded limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius—rather than 2 degrees Celsius—between now and 2030—would be beneficial to human populations and ecosystems.
But the report’s Summary for Policymakers also said that “rapid,” “far-reaching,” and “unprecedented” changes would be needed across society to achieve this reduction in the rate of increase in temperature.
Enter Climate Without Borders, an organization founded in 2017, which brings together about 140 weather presenters (as the forecasters are commonly referred to outside the U.S.) from 110 countries.
Jill Peeters, a Belgian weather …read more