The IPCC warnings repeatedly fall on deaf ears and now we are losing time
By: Dorothy Guerrero
Date: 20 March 2023
Campaigns: Climate
The 58th Session of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just released the Synthesis Report of its 6th Assessment cycle, which it has produced every five to seven years since it was founded in 1988. The current cycle’s 30-page Synthesis Report is a distillation of 10,500 pages of reports from the three IPCC Working Groups. The report from Working Group I on the Physical Science Basis came out on 9 August 2021, while the reports from Working Group II on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability and from Working Group III on Mitigation of Climate Change were released on 28 February and 4 April 2022 respectively.
The IPCC Reports, written by the top global climate scientists from 195 countries, summarise the latest science on climate change from evidence gathered worldwide, its impacts and possible solutions. A Synthesis Report is produced at the end of each cycle, so the report coming out today draws on information from the six reports published so far. It is the most comprehensive and authoritative account on climate change and sets government climate policies.
The current assessment cycle has 700 authors, including 30 per cent women and more than 40 per cent from the Global South. The first report was written in 1990, with 100 authors, 10 per cent of whom were women and 20 per cent from the Global South. Member countries of the IPCC also sign off on the report to ensure that governments accept its findings as authoritative advice on which to base their actions.
The IPCC alarm bells repeatedly rang since 1990
The Synthesis Report and the IPCC’s ‘Summary for Policymakers’ is a crucial document set to impact this year’s COP28 in December to be held in the United Arab Emirates. A global stocktake of the 2015 Paris Agreement is set for this year’s climate talks. The reports serve as warnings of the urgency of immediate and transformative action to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and urgently set the world on a path to a just and equitable transition to renewables. As with all previous Synthesis Reports, this report will be used by business, social movements, campaigners and various communities, apart from governments.
The IPCC already warned in its 2021 Report that the world is in the last critical decade for limiting global temperature rise to below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Beyond that figure, human-made damage to climate will become irreversible. We all know that the targets, since the 2015 Paris Agreement of COP21, will not bring us any closer to fulfilling the goals of staying below 1.5°C of global heating. In fact, the projection based on updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) from governments last year put us on a pathway to reach 2.7°C by the end of this century.
Previous IPCC reports have confirmed that the impacts of climate change are already being felt around the world, with devastating consequences for ecosystems, health, and livelihoods, especially in the Global South. The 2022 Working Group II report stated that nearly 3.5 billion people globally are already vulnerable to climate change and already experiencing food and water scarcity. The Synthesis Report warns that vulnerable countries are now reaching the limit for adaptation. Despite more than 30 years of warnings from the IPCC, world leaders remain incapable of addressing climate breakdown, thereby taking us towards a point of runaway climate change.
The immediate need for rapid, just and equitable energy transition
Temperatures are now about 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels according to the IPCC. However, if greenhouse gas emissions can be made to peak as soon as possible, and are reduced rapidly in the following years, we might still avoid the worst consequences of a 1.5°C rise. As the Synthesis Report shows, an immediate, fast track and equitable transition away from fossil fuels is needed. However, the Paris Agreement makes no mention of coal, oil and gas, and until the last COP27 agreement in Egypt last year, the UN climate talks still failed to mention the phase out of all fossil fuels, let alone the need to manage a just transition to renewable energy.
The IPCC has found that fossil fuels are responsible for 86% of all carbon dioxide emissions in the past decade, yet governments including ours have not totally ruled out investments in fossil fuels and their continued use. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has stated too that fossil fuel expansion is incompatible with the target. The IEA has repeatedly stated that clean energy, not fossil fuels, is the solution for energy affordability, security and climate and development goals.
Meanwhile, oil and gas companies have made record profits with no regard for the destruction they are causing. Last year Global Justice Now found that the Big 5 oil companies alone could be responsible for as much as $65 billion a year of loss and damage to the Global South by 2030. Fossil fuel companies like these are very successful in avoiding tax payments on their record profits and continue to enjoy their role in climate summits like the UN COPs.
As one of the historical contributors to the climate crisis, the UK has the responsibility to transition first and fastest, while providing aid and grants to support fossil fuel dependent economies with less capacity to transition. The war in Ukraine and the energy crisis it generated has highlighted the urgency of ending our fossil fuel dependency, both for the UK and the world.
The next IPCC report will be in 2030. If nothing drastic is done till then, we will be living in a totally different world.
Take action
Tell big polluters to pay for their climate damage >>
Photo: Loredana Sangiuliano/Shutterstock
