The Tipping Point - an Extreme E workshop now live on YouTube
Extreme E headed to Greenland for the Arctic X Prix (28-29 August), a region which epitomises the climate crisis like no other. The midway point in the season marked a potential tipping point for change as although considered a remote location, Greenland is central to the functioning of our planet, its climate system, and the oceans.
As part of the first ever international motorsport event to take place on the island, Extreme E hosted a series of talks, called The Tipping Point, which were chaired by climate change advocates including members of Extreme E’s Science Committee.
Christiana Figueres, who is widely recognised as responsible for delivering the 2015 Paris Agreement, joined Lucas Di Grassi, Formula E driver and UN Climate Ambassador, for a discussion titled ‘driving stubborn optimism to win the race to zero.’ Local government officer Paninnguaq Kristiansen from Greenland’s Ministry for Agriculture, Self-Sufficiency, Energy and Environment, and scientists Dr David Browley and Dr. Thomas Juul-Pedersen, who investigate evidence for climate change impacts in Greenland at the Greenland Natural Resources Institute and Greenland Climate Centre, respectively, and Professor Dorte Krause-Jensen from the Arctic Research Centre and BioScience Department at Aarhus University, Denmark, also joined virtually to offer a Greenlandic perspectives on solutions for climate change.
“The reason we raced in Greenland was much bigger than putting on a fantastic show” says series Founder and CEO Alejandro Agag. “It is crucial we highlight the issues faced in the Arctic including ice melt leading to global sea level rise. We really are at a tipping point in the climate crisis and it was important to hear from members of our esteemed Scientific Committee not only about the issues, but the solutions on offer, including electric vehicles, one of the key parts of Extreme E.”
So, what is the ‘tipping point’?
We caught up with Professor Carlos Duarte to explain - one of the five world-renowned scientists which make up Extreme E’s Scientific Committee - to explain the significance of the Legacy workshops in Greenland.
“Whereas tipping-points refer, in the climate context, to sudden, catastrophic changes due to destabilisation of critical components of the Earth System, such as the Greenland ice sheet, we, at Extreme E, wanted to give it a different positive meaning. Tipping points can also be positive, and we referred to the power of collaboration to bring about transformative, positive change in our society to meet our climate goals. Extreme E gathers the perfect ecosystem to elicit this change. We hope that Extreme E’s global legacy workshops will now bring a wave of change to realise our collective capacity to deliver climate and, more broadly, sustainability solutions” says Carlos. “We need all of those involved in the Extreme E ecosystem to achieve this positive tipping point.”
“The destabilisation of the Greenland ice sheet is the single most important driver of future sea level rise, with huge potential risks for island states, low-lying coastal regions, and human lives and infrastructure. The complete melting of the one-million-year-old ice cap would and will lead to sea levels rising by seven metres over the next 350 years.”
The Greenland ice sheet was a pivotal element when opening discussions on climate change. Kangerlussuaq, where the Arctic X Prix was held, acts as the headquarters to supporting all research in the Greenland ice sheet and offers a unique vantage point to observe the changes experienced.
For many decades of the twentieth century, climate change was viewed as a slow, symphonic process of ice age cycles that lasted 100,000 years. This natural process posed no immediate threat to our planet. It simply happened too slowly to make a significant impact.
However, as Professor Peter Wadhams who is part of Extreme E’s Scientific Committee explained, “Our view completely changed when two very long cores were drilled out of the Greenland ice cap. Those cores revealed for the first time the impact of climate change going back hundreds of thousands of years. The evidence was startling. Instead of ice ages taking the better part of 100,000 years to develop, it was determined that the earth could be plunged into an ice age in as little as ten years due to unstable climate change and increasing greenhouse gases.”
“As glaciers disappear, they expose mountainsides that were previously stabilised by the ice. This can increase the risk of land and rockslides. When glaciers melt and they no longer reach the sea, instead ending on dry land, the ecosystem in the fjord changes. There is no longer the same upwelling of fluctuating water temperatures and differences in salination, which means less nutrients for the fish.
As part of Extreme E’s Legacy Programme in Greenland the Scientific Committee collected sediments and water samples to assess their potential to release alkalinity and remove CO2. These are being analysed in the science laboratory on board the St. Helena.
“In addition, Greenland supports a total of about 50,000 people across its vast area, with communities scattered in a few urban centres and dozens of very small communities” said Carlos. “Providing services to these communities is indeed challenging, as these communities cannot be connected through a single grid delivering. Current approaches, based on fossil fuels, with marginal contributions from hydropower in summer, are inconsistent with Greenland being particularly vulnerable to climate change.”
As a result of the impact on Greenland’s climate a number of other problems have arisen.
“Unstable weather in winter can result in changing weather with thawing and frost” Paninnguaq Kristiansen shared. “This can be a particular challenge for wildlife in the Kangerlussuaq area. In winter, reindeer and musk oxen need access to the scarce food. Increased precipitation means that the soil and grass, and thus the animals' food, is covered by a thick layer of ice, which makes it difficult for the animals to find food.
“Under normal conditions, the weakest animals will die during a severe winter. If in the future there are more and longer periods where the animals do not have access to food in the winter, it can have a big impact on how many animals make it through the season.”
“When the Extreme E team were last in Kangerlussuaq in August two years ago, they encountered a record loss of ice from the ice sheet in a single day – 12.5 billion tons of water melted and ended up in the ocean, causing faster sea level rise” added Carlos. “Given the extraordinary air temperatures which we have been experiencing, this record could yet be beaten this year.”
Founder and CEO of Extreme E Alejandro Agag concludes, “It is a truly sobering place to be when you understand the scale of the situation and this has really brought home the severity of the global climate emergency to me, and the race against time that we are all part of.
“I hope by being here and using our global media platform, we have showed the world not only the effects of climate change, but can also continue to educate on the solutions, through the expert knowledge of our Scientific Committee, and also through our Legacy Programme with UNICEF in Greenland and the community of Kangerlussuaq.”
