Climate Clock projected on Rio’s Christ the Redeemer statue

Rio de Janeiro, Jul 22 (EFE).- The Christ the Redeemer statue that overlooks Rio de Janeiro served as a screen Saturday for the projection of the Climate Clock, a project to dramatize how little time the world has to slow global warming sufficiently to avert disaster.

Brazil’s most iconic monument was illuminated to show the clock tick over from 6 years, 0 days, 00:00 hours to 5 years, 364 days, 23:59.59 hours.

The 2015 Paris Agreement established the goal of limiting the rise in global median temperatures to 1.5 C. An increase above that threshold, according to climate scientists, will have catastrophic consequences.

The Climate Clock estimate is the work of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change in Berlin, which in turn uses data from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“We must take steps to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases to zero as quickly as possible. Time is growing short, while the climate impacts are increasingly greater,” said Natalie Unterstell of the Instituto Talanoa, which brought the Climate Clock to Brazil.

“There is no time to waste on vague promises and false solutions,” she said.

The United States and Greece, among other nations, are currently sweltering in record heat, while torrential rains have recently caused scores of deaths in South Korea, Colombia, and Brazil. EFE Completed in 1931, Christ the Redeemer is 30 m (98 ft) high, excluding its 8 m (26 ft) pedestal, and looms over Rio from the top of Corcovado Mountain, which rises 700 m (2,300 ft) above sea level.

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