EXETER — The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report, which states the world has 12 years to prevent a global temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era to prevent the worst possible effects of climate change, is now one-year in.

These consequences include, but are not limited to, dramatic sea level rise, drought, increased frequency and intensity of major storm events, and societal destabilization around the world as a result of the forced migration of large populations from various coastal areas due to flooding.

With Earth Day on Monday, the data detailing the progress all nations have made toward achieving the carbon emission reduction goals outlined in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement indicates, as a whole, the world is lagging well behind cutting emissions to the level recommended by 2030.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme Emissions Gap Report published last November, each individual country’s committed Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of carbon emissions needs to be further reduced in coming years to prevent more than a 2 degrees Celsius rise in global temperature.

At the world’s current pace, the NDCs are estimated to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions six gigatons by 2030. However, the report states that reduction would have to be tripled to hit the target of less than a 2 degrees Celsius rise in global temperature and increased five-fold for a less than 1.5 degrees Celsius increase, in the same time frame. The United States is currently not on track to even meet its unconditional greenhouse gas emission reduction, along with half of the other G20 member countries.

Retired Navy Capt. Robin Tyner spent her 32-year career in the armed services working at some of the highest levels of the Navy, including preparing the decision forms for the chief of naval operations, helped produce the Navy’s Task Force Energy and Task Force Climate Change, and produced weather forecasts for half the world for several years. She said the world is running out of time, and the time is now for an all-hands-on-deck approach for moving the needle significantly enough to stave off climate change’s worst effects.

Tyner, who holds a dual master’s degree in oceanography and meteorology, said university and government scientists and independent researchers funded by different branches of the military over the decades have developed a comprehensive understanding of ongoing climate change without intentionally doing so. She said the research was intended for the military to better understand how ever-changing weather patterns affected its capability to fight wars and how a changing climate could potentially destabilize specific countries socially and politically.

“Anybody in the armed forces sent anywhere in a plane or a ship; it’s a completely objective and non-partisan mission of keeping people safe and making sure their weapons work. Temperature and humidity affect weapons systems,” Tyner, an Exeter resident, said. “In the end, the purpose was to develop better forecast models because since things are changing so much. Things are almost happening faster than we can create the models now.”

Tyner said while the military spent decades planning how to prepare for the future conflicts of tomorrow while the Earth’s climate was changing, American politicians have not risen to level their armed forces have in confronting the threat climate change poses. She said she attends quarterly forums in Washington, D.C., where several center-right groups supporting climate action are gaining more influence. She also said there is momentum behind fossil fuel companies beginning to negotiate with lawmakers on the price of a carbon tax, which would ideally create a market-based solution for cutting emissions in concert with broader climate change legislation.

Tyner pointed to the proposed “Green New Deal,” the Off Fossil Fuels Act, proposed by U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and the latest Republican “Green Real Deal” as signs the national discussion was finally shifting from debating the science of climate change to coming up with solutions.

“Instead of debating the reality, now they’re all debating solutions, Tyner said. “Most Republicans now know the reality, probably 90 percent of them, but sadly both sides are controlled by their donors. Once they agree to a price on carbon, it’s almost like they’ll free the people they’ve donated to, to go do the right thing.”

Dr. Brenda Ekwurzel, co-author of the most recent National Climate Assessment and director of climate science for the Union of Concerned Scientists said, with the renewable energy technology available today, it was theoretically possible for the world to stay within a safe global temperature increase threshold.

Ekwurzel said as the world’s largest producer of emissions, this would not happen without leadership and political will from the United States in the form of subsidies for renewable energy initiatives on all levels of government.

“We have off-the-shelf solutions engineers have designed that are just not being employed,” Ekwurzel said during a presentation to New Hampshire journalists last month. “We need a moonshot of investment is what could rapidly transform this. It’s time for (the United States to lead); we’ve pushed away from leadership on this issue.”

Though less optimistic on the national level, Tyner referenced the Emission Gap report calling on “sub-national actors,” such as states and communities to take charge of creating local solutions to confront climate change to augment any overarching national policy to come, if it even comes in time to make a meaningful difference, she said.

As a municipal volunteer in Exeter, Tyner, working with a group of other town volunteers, helped pass a warrant article in the town election to create a town sustainability office in March’s town election. She said her group has spoken with several municipal sustainability officers from around the Northeast to learn about their endeavors in cutting municipal emissions and how they save their towns’ tax money, even though Exeter’s position cannot be funded until next Town Meeting as passed.

“It’s the urgency I think a lot of people don’t understand,” Tyner said. “The IPCC report with the original 12-year estimate, it’s not spend 12 years coming up with an idea and then implement it. If we’re all going to sit around and wait for the feds, that’s just not a good strategy because who wants to wait on anything in life until the federal government figures it out? Leaders have to lead and not use process as an excuse.”