How the two Koreas can establish a model to handle climate crisis

 The two Koreas cannot by themselves stop the climate crisis, but they can establish a model that the rest of the world can follow.

The new UN report on the climate crisis is truly frightening. The report tells us what we already know about the reasons for the current heatwaves, flooding, forest fires, ice melt, and extreme weather events sweeping the planet. We, humans, are causing these changes, primarily by burning fossil fuels in our cars, planes, and factories.

The report also tells us what we perhaps don’t know: that even if countries uphold their current pledges to reduce carbon emissions, it will only result in a one percent decrease in global emissions by 2030 (from 2010 levels). To make sure that the planet doesn’t go past the point of no return, climate-wise, those global emissions must be cut by 50 percent before the end of this decade.

As UN chief António Guterres says, the new UN report is a “code red for humanity.”

The climate crisis affects regions of the world differently. Huge forest fires are blazing in Siberia, Greece, and California. Ice loss in Greenland and Antarctica is contributing to a significant rise in sea levels that is encroaching on coastlines and threatening to sink a number of islands around the world. Germany recently experienced unprecedented rainfall that led to the inundation of several towns in the Rhine basin.

In Asia, the primary impact of climate change is on the monsoon cycle. Essentially, areas that traditionally get a lot of rain will get even more while dry regions will become even drier.

Just this month, record rainfall in central China produced flooding and mudslides that killed more than 300 people.

Korea has experienced the same catastrophes. Last summer, heavy rainfall swept through the middle of South Korea, flooding the city of Daejeon and even overflowing the banks of the Han in Seoul. It was the longest monsoon in seven years: 42 straight days of rain.

North Korea, too, went through heavy rains last summer. And now it is facing flooding once again. In the country’s northeast, heavy rains have destroyed houses and farmland. At least 5,000 people have been evacuated from the flood zones.