but it was so much fun and totally worth it. ♪ >> you're watching al jazeera. a reminder of our top stories. the u.n. human rights chief has relieved -- released a damning report against china. beijing's arbitrary and discriminatory detention of uighur muslims and other muslims may constitute crimes against humanity. >> it was 13 minutes before the end of her term, the end of her month, that the report was

released. i can tell you human rights groups are pretty angry about that, pretty angry about the way this was done. they also tell me it was probably indicative of the pressure behind the scenes that was coming from china. we have a statement from human rights watch. the findings explain why the chinese government fought tooth and nail to prevent the publication of this report. >> a state of emergency has been declared in mississippi has been left without safe running water. authorities say pumps out the main treatment plant have failed. u.n. inspectors have arrived in ukraine on a mission to prevent an accident at europe's nucleus -- largest nuclear power site. european union foreign ministers have agreed to suspend a visa deal with russia which will make it harder and more expensive for russian citizens to visit eu countries. it comes after ministers met in prague. syrian state media says israel

has launched airstrikes towards aleppo. four missiles are believed to have hit runways. pakistan's army is on high alert for more floods in the south of the country. the river has been swelling for weeks, threatening another wave of flooding. army helicopters have arrived in areas that have been cut off for days. at least one person has been killed in fighting between rivals in southern iraq. tensions remain high after an influential leader said he was withdrawing from politics. monday and tuesday sought heavy fighting. you can follow those stories on her website. next is inside story. stay with us. ♪

nick: there is nothing that can be done to stop dramatic sea level rises. that is the warning from scientists. last year was record-breaking for natural disasters. so what does this all mean for attempts to deal with climate change? this is "inside story." ♪ hello and welcome to the program. i am nick clark. major sea level rises are now inevitable even if we stop burning fossil fuels today. that is the assessment of

scientists studying the greenland ice sheet in the arctic. it is melting much faster than predicted. they say the best case scenario is a rise of 27 centimeters. global sea levels could go up by 78. this is likely to happen by the end of the century. an ocean scientist says this means natural disasters which are already more frequent become even more destructive. >> it is particularly associated with extreme events like storms and king tides. if you have a background in sea level rising of about one foot and then you have a large tide and a storm, that you have something like hurricane sandy that we went through new york. so that will become a more frequent occurrence around the planet. we are raising the background and making other natural events more severe. this is, if you will, a baked in, or committed fact. carbon dioxide in the air around us now is going to be here long time, so the warming is committed.

the reorganization of the ice sheet in greenland is already there. we should be perhaps more concerned with what is possibly going to happen in the south in antarctica. there, the stakes are enormous. we are talking about a change that could be many meters. nick: of major concern for climate scientists is the temperature increase. in 2015 there was the paris agreement, agreeing to limit -- you and experts say even this level could appreciate coastlines. warmer oceans will begin to melt ice sheets in greenland antarctica. it flows into the sea, causing levels to rise. new york city is prone to flooding. 1.6 million people could be affected. mumbai has twice its population, and its people face threats of monsoons. london relies on the thames

barrier to protect it from flooding, but climate change could pose a greater risk of storm surges. and africa's biggest city is vulnerable, a risk for 2.2 million people. it's not any -- last year so i record breaking disasters including wildfires, heat waves and droughts. many could have been avoided or had their impacts reduced. during 2021 and 2022, disasters took the lives of about 10,000 people and cost more than $280 billion in damage worldwide. the u.n. has been looking about how the effects of extreme weather events can be reduced. they studied 10 emergencies and it said the causes of disasters need to be identified, such as erosion that can lead to landslides, and sandstorms in madagascar. the report suggests a better warning systems could have reduced deaths.

it says there needs to be more focused on designing and implementing sustainable solutions. all right. that bringing our guests. in illinois is yarrow axford, climate scientist at northwestern university. zita sebesvari, lead author of the interconnected disaster report we were just talking about, and deputy director of the u.n. university institute for environment and human security. and in newcastle is sharon george, senior lecturer in environmental sustainability in the u.k. sharon specializes on low carbon technology. great to have you all here with us. plenty to go at. let's start with the troubling news from greenland. yarrow axford, you know all too well what is happening there.

tell us what this research means in layman's terms. yarrow: climate scientists have known for a long time and have been concerned for a long time that the ice sheets in greenland and antarctica are so huge and so complex that they kind of can't up with the pace of climate change that humans have caused in recent decades. and so, there's a sort of lag in ice sheet response to human-caused warming. if you take ice cubes out of the freezer and put them on the kitchen counter in a warm room, they do not melt immediately, but you know they are doomed if you leave them sitting in that new climate you have forced on them. portions of our ice sheets are doomed in that same way. but one of the really big uncertainties in climate science has been and still is how much

and how fast the ice sheets will respond to climate change. so this study takes one bite out of that problem by trying to quantify that committed loss of ice for the first time, as far as i know. nick: the point is even if we ended carbon emissions now, this sea level rise is locked in. yarrow: that's right. the study tries to quantify that best case scenario, where if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today and stabilize climate where it is today, how much ice would we still lose in the future with no continued additional warming. and the numbers are pretty devastating. it really shines a light on how much diamond -- damage we have already done to the climate system. we have baked in, or committed to the loss of about 3% of the greenland ice sheet. that is 110 trillion metric tons of ice.

about 14,000 metric tons for every person on earth. nick: and 3% of the greenland ice sheet, and this is the best case scenario, that equates to 27 centimeters of sea level rise, which does not sound like much but even those impacts could be devastating. zita: yes. i think if you are looking into the low-lying cause and into the planning process, it is how do we protect people, but how do we reduce the risk. we need to consider different levels of sea level in our planning process. the best case scenario is the minimum and this is something we can plan a bit for sure. we also need to consider the high end scenarios. whenever you plan with critical infrastructure like hospitals, harbors, but also cities like

new york, you also need to know what could be the worst scenario and how to prepare for that. and many times when you hear these calculations, how many people will be affected, it is oftentimes done without considering our reactions. but our reactions and our disaster reactions are much as important to deal with t he issue. there's a lot we can do as a society, and also that we have to do. because there is a commitment to sea level rise, part of it we cannot change, but we have to prepare for an even worse scenario. nick: we will come onto that shortly. when we consider the highest scenario, what we have to remember is all we are talking about here at the moment is the arctic. when you factor in what is happening in antarctica and a collapsing of ice sheets there,

then you have a real problem. sharon: yes. that effect is rippling out. when we talk about, oh, this is impacting the sea level, we have to think of one in 10 of us around the globe live in a low-lying area. two thirds of our largest cities are in low-lying areas. so, this is impacting not only through flooding, so, think about you already have a race to sea level -- a raised sea level, but you are impacting people's livelihoods around the low-lying areas. what we are seeing are challenges around farmland. we're having problems where people are just struggling to stay where they are. so this is driving in direct impact, human migration. couple that with the challenges that climate change is bringing in our ability to produce food. we have seen this awful

situation unfoldining before our eyes. nick: when you talk about human migration, it is not the kind of migration necessarily we are seeing right now. we are talking human migration within nations, away from the coastline. sharon: absolutely. we are talking about movements of people away from the farmer they have lived, they have worked, they have had a livelihood and they have been able to support themselves and their families. when it becomes uneconomical, we are seeing huge swathes of the population, for instance, areas of bangladesh migrating to megacities. that is a double whammy, because that city is under pressure from flooding. so we have these impacts where people are being forced to move, when we don't have the infrastructure to support them.

under situations where, even just to exist without this migration, because climate change is more difficult are ready. so, there's a whole range of pressures on the population globally, and this is going to change significantly. nick: yarrow, there is no precise timeline here. what the authors are talking about is the the best case scenario, 27 70 derives from greenland alone, is likely to happen this century. that really is not far away. yarrow: that seems to be the author's best guess about timeline, but that is not something rigorously evaluated in this study, which distinguishes it from some other work. the ipcc reports most recently in 2021 have projected something like half a meter to a meter of sea level rise within the coming century. that is a larger number, because

it includes contributions from antarctica and from the many smaller glaciers scattered around the planet, as well as warming of ocean water, which contributes to sea level rise. that is why it is a larger number. this century is here now. my son will live to experience a lot of what we are talking about today. nick: it is a clear and present danger. i was going to ask you about the ipcc, and the difference in these figures. this is an issue that is hard for the public to take in. how does the layman get a grip on what is going on, and to be aware and concerned about what is happening? because it is so confusing that people just do not register. yarrow: yeah, that is a fair response. between the way that science works and the way we're constantly refining things and

looking at things in different angles, and the way these complex pieces of science are then reported in the news media, it does feel like a lot of back and forth and waffling about what is going on. but the reality is that we have known for a very long time that a warming world will be a world with rising sea levels, and with a lot of loss of ice from the ice sheets. and perhaps the most important thing for people to understand is that every impact of climate change, whether it is physical, ice loss from an ice sheet, or we're talking about impacts on humans and ecosystems, scales with the amount of warming. so we can quibble, scientists can quibble about exactly how much loss of ice we are already committed to -- and that is an important question to try and tackle. but the really important thing to keep in mind is the more the planet warms, the bigger these

impacts are going to be. nick: zita, coming onto the u.n. report, clearly doing nothing is not an option. right now we are seeing the pakistan floods, a key case in point. but we can mitigate these disasters as laid out in your report. tell us a little about that and what the potential solutions are. zita: most importantly we say there are no natural disasters, because there are natural hazards. sea level rise is driving those natural hazards, like flooding, coastal flooding, inundation, erosion. but there's a huge influence of human action. our planning processes, how do we plan along the coast, and how do we protect our coastline. this is why it is really important that these global sea level rise projections are translated into local sea level rise projections in local planning.

the reason behind this is there is a global sea level rise, but that does not mean sea level rise plays out in the very same way locally. for example in nigeria, where we have one of the cases, land is sinking. that means local sea level rise is actually much higher because the sinking land combines with the rising sea. locally, you need to know what you need to plan for, and then you need to factor in what i already mentioned, the critical infrastructure i am planning to build, or can i retreat, or can i advanced. that means build into the sea, sediment-based measures to protect the shoreline. nick: forgive me for jumping in, but there is so much to cover. there are solutions, but the bottom line is they cost an awful lot of money, and the country's most vulnerable do not have the kind of money. it needs to come from the

wealthy nations. and we have seen countless e1 climate summits, that money is just not forthcoming. so where does the money come from and how do we get resolution? zita: the cost of inaction is much higher for everyone than the cost of action now so this is what we are communicating since at least 20 years. investing now will pay off. there is the $100 billion to developing countries feeling the impact of climate change. developed countries did not deliver on that promise that was made in 2010 in copenhagen. so that needs to be fulfilled and then we need to step up ambition in terms of climate finance and finance for adaptation. nick: sharon, low carbon technology as part of your remit. it is part of the answer to it

all. how are we doing on the march of the future, the march of the brave new we need to be in? sharon: there is some great technology out there. there's my hydex project which shows promise and gives an alternative to natural gas. however, it is not these sort of technologies happening anywhere near the pace we need them to appear again -- need them to. again, it comes down to money and having that investment and vision, and the pace of change we need is clearly not there at the moment. in the meantime, we're seeing these impacts costing money, so money is being spent in the wrong place. if we could wind the clock back, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but we are where we are, and governments need to start really investing in and speeding up, moving away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible. but also putting technology in

that does not just mitigate against carbon, but we need to be removing carbon if we stand any chance of keeping below those thresholds. i mean, we talk about a three to grieve threshold -- a three degree threshold. we are not far off. we have papers that talk about five degrees, a massive distinction level. this is not a risk the climate can afford to take. that investment needs to be paid by the globe, by everybody. and the wealthy nations are those nations that are producing the most emissions. we need to be investing in that technology to move us into a safer place. nick: the speed of change is a terrifying thing. yarrow, in your studies of greenland, in the time you have been studying, have you been surprised about the rate of change? yarrow: from the time i was a graduate student, which was

longer ago than i want to admit, i have sat in countless conference sessions where rooms of scientists are stunned by the kinds of changes at the poles that are being documented with satellite data and so on. it is stunning how fast the earth's system is changing in response to our greenhouse gas emissions. nick: indeed. zita, going back to how we deal with disasters, with respect it is easy to say let's bring in more early warning systems, let's let nature do the work. but how does that work practically in a situation like the floods in pakistan, which are so devastating. even if they were predicted -- and they were, and people saw the rain coming, but probably not to be scale it ended up being. but even if that is possible, there is nothing you can do when nature is acting in that magnitude. zita: i think there is a range

of different kinds of natural hazards. if it comes to such a huge event like the monsoonal rain flooding in pakistan, then of course the actions to react are somewhat constrained, but even there, a lot can be done to reduce exposure. but most hazards are not so extreme, and we're even failing that to decrease vulnerability and increase capacity. a lot can be done. we try to communicate that we should not give up, or say we're in anyway doomed and we cannot do anything. that's just not an option, we cannot accept that. we have to speed up our action and finance. nick: briefly if you would, sharon, we have this next climate conference coming up in egypt in september.

adaptation will be a big focus. is there anything to you that suggests we can move forward? sharon: i think there is momentum now growing and we are starting to see the impact. we just experienced a really prolonged heat wave across europe and the u.k. these events will put climate change at the forefront of countries. those heat waves will do us no harm when it comes to the negotiating table, so i am hopeful that change will start to happen now much more quickly. nick: yarrow, what about you? and why are we not acting faster? it is pretty evident that this is soon going to put all of humanity's other problems into the shade. yarrow: we are not acting faster in part because this is a very tough problem to tackle. but that is also a legacy of decades of misinformation campaigns that were targeted to do exactly that, to delay action. i think we are now kind of on a

personal level around the world seeing the impacts of climate change so vividly, that it feels much more real to people. meanwhile, we have the technology and renewable energies cost competitive now. we actually have the ability to start making much faster change happen. one thing i want to say as a parting thought, this study shines a light on the damage we have already done, suggesting that we're committed to losing 3% of the greenland ice sheet, which is a devastating thought. but the more important number is the other 97% of the ice sheet that we have not yet committed to losing. and so, i really hope that people leave this discussion realizing that that other 97% is still there for us to decide the fate of, and that is a lot of power that we have in this moment. nick: the other problem we have

to overcome is how the consequences of all of this are unimaginable to most people. our final thought to you, zita. zita: the ipcc report says more high end scenarios, like going up to two meters until the end of the century. so we need to act now on both end, mitigation cutting, but also reducing it. nick: we will leave it there. it is a very serious problem, but there are solutions to it and i hope we have explored some of those to a certain extent now. thank you so much for joining us. thank you to our guests, yarrow, zita sebesvari, and sharon george. and thank you for joining us. for further discussion, go to our facebook page. you can also join the conversation on twitter, @ajins idestory.

goodbye for now. ♪

woman: in the 1960s and the 1970s, there was a loosely affiliated group of artists living in los angeles who grew up working through painting and influenced by abstract expressionism, but by the mid-sixties, they were looking for ever subtler kind of effects, and so you could almost say that light was their medium. man: rather than paint and canvas, you've got something that has 3 dimension and is full of ambiguity and full of mystery. different man: irwin and larry bell and helen pashgian, all of these artists, are at the top of their game now.