Climate activists projected a “Climate Clock” on the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, over the weekend, claiming that the world has “less than six years left” to stop climate change and avoid “catastrophic scenarios.”
According to the non-government climate organization Talanoa Institute, which arranged for the clock to be projected on Brazil’s emblematic monument, the timer represents the amount of time left to keep the “average increase in the Earth’s temperature at minimally safe levels for humanity.”
The president of the Talanoa Institute, Natalie Unterstell, claimed to the Agência Brasil news organization, “When the calculation was made in 2015, we were at a pace of emissions where scientists said we would have until 2030 to try to stay within the 1.5 celsius limit.”
“Now it is before that, we are talking about less than six years,” she asserted. “That’s the message. It is late and we have no time to lose. It is time to fully align private policies and decisions with this imperative of reducing [carbon] emissions and ensuring climate security for all.”
Unterstell clarified that the clock is not a clock, “it doesn’t tell what time it is,” but rather, a “climate clock.”
“The most important thing is that the watch’s message resonates with many people,” Unterstell continued. “It means that if the emission rate continues to increase it will speed up, the clock will run faster. On the other hand, if we manage to reduce emissions, this clock will start ticking more slowly.”
The activists claim that the clock will continue to tick down and when it reaches zero it will mean that the “entire carbon budget will be exhausted and the likelihood of devastating global climate impacts will be very high.“
The “Climate Clock” activists claim on their website that the world is in a “climate emergency” due to current carbon emissions and that, “backed by the latest science, the Climate Clock tells us what we must do, by when.”
The organization claims that the alleged catastrophes may be averted through several “lifelines,” such as the use of renewable energy, “indigenous land sovereignty” to “prevent the worst impacts of climate change,” demanding “loss and damage” payments from G20 member-states, and green climate funds. The organization also claims that gender parity in national governance is required to fight off climate change, as women are “more adversely impacted by climate breakdown/disruptions than men,” and divesting from fossil fuels.
The organization has installed one such “climate clock” in Union Square in New York, as well as similar clocks located in Berlin, New York, Seoul, Rome, and Glasgow.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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