A Clock In New York Now Tells How Much Time We Have Left

The Climate Clock aims to draw attention to how much time we have left to avoid the risk of global warming causing irreversible damage to our planet.

The Climate Clock overlooking Manhattan’s Union Square. Credit: Climate Clock

For more than 20 years, a huge 15-digit clock overlooking Manhattan’s Union Square measured the seconds to midnight each day. But those digits have just been reconfigured to tell a stark warning instead: they now measure the remaining time that we collectively have to prevent the effects of global warming from becoming irreversible. 

The new installation, named the Climate Clock, is the result of a collaboration between artists, scientists and activists who are using the timer to draw attention to the urgency in which we must collectively tackle the climate crisis.

The clock face began at 7:103:15:40:07, representing the years, days, hours, minutes and seconds until the irreversible deadline for planet earth’s climate crisis. Andrew Boyd and Gan Golan, the two artists leading the project, say the decreasing digits on the clock show “the most important number in the world”. 

In their call to action, the artist’s project outlines how we must work towards zero carbon emissions and focus on renewable energy, before we burn through what scientists call our “carbon budget” - the amount of CO2 that can still be released into the atmosphere while limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. 

If global warming rises above this temperature, then we run the risk of hitting a climatic tipping point - a point in the Earth’s physical climate system that would cause large and possibly irreversible transitions in the state of the climate. These figures are based on findings in the recent IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C. 

“The Climate Clock will remind the world every day just how perilously close we are to the brink,” Stephen Ross, chairman of Related Companies, the developer that owns One Union Square South, said in a statement to the New York Times. He added, “this initiative will encourage everybody to join us in fighting for the future of our planet.”

A key driver of the climate crisis is deforestation and intensive agriculture, which are both having a devastating effect on the world’s wildlife. Just last month, a landmark report by leading conservationists found that around two-thirds of the world’s wildlife has been wiped out.

To find out more about the Climate Clock project and to see current ‘time’, visit their website.

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