The UN says temperatures are likely to rise by 1.5C in the near term unless the world acts now

“This report calls for massively fast-tracking climate efforts by every country and every region and every time frame,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement upon the report’s release. “In short, our world needs climate action on all fronts – everything, everywhere, all at once.”

The report outlines a few points about climate change and its impacts:

• Greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activity have clearly caused global warming, and emissions continue to rise, with some countries and groups contributing far more than others.
• The world must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60% below 2019 levels by 2035.
• “Sweeping and rapid” changes to planetary systems have already occurred, their effects disproportionately affecting the world’s at-risk populations. More than 3 billion people are highly vulnerable to climate change.
• Climate adaptation has advanced, but not enough. Current levels of funding are insufficient. The increased heat would make acclimatization difficult.
• Although policies to mitigate climate change have expanded, it is likely that the world will exceed 1.5C of warming “in the near term”. Limiting warming to 1.5C or 2C would require deep emissions cuts across the economy this decade. If the world exceeds 1.5 C, that level can be brought down again by ending emissions and deploying carbon removals, but carbon removals bring additional concerns. Emissions would need to peak before 2025 to have a 50% chance of hitting 1.5C with little or no overshoot.
• Climate related risks are increasing with every increase in warming. “Deep, rapid and sustained” emissions cuts may avoid some future changes, but not others.

The sixth cycle of IPCC publications began in 2018. Global emissions have not decreased, but have continued to increase since then, necessitating more drastic and urgent steps to reduce them. It is important to reach net zero emissions soon.

Adding a 60% greenhouse gas emissions reduction target for 2035 adds significant granularity to the race to net-zero emissions by 2050. The previously stated emission reduction targets focused on the end of the decades: 2030, 2040 and 2050. It makes a solid end point for the next round of 10-year climate pledges to be made by countries in 2025.

Without reducing greenhouse gases through technologies such as carbon capture and storage, the projected emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure would exceed the carbon budget we have left to stay below the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C limit, the report notes.

Meanwhile, the world’s top two annual emitters are still expanding that infrastructure: China approved more coal projects in 2022 than all other countries combined, while the US approved a new oil drilling project in Alaska. . America is the largest historical emitter.

And climate risks have only increased. Since the fifth IPCC cycle that ended in 2014, “the evidence for extreme changes such as heatwaves, heavy rainfall, drought, and tropical cyclones, and in particular, their attribution to human influence, has been further strengthened”.

More and more intense heatwaves are killing people on every inhabited continent. Floods – like those that displaced millions in Pakistan last year – along with wildfires and other disasters are forcing people out of their homes all over the world. Sea level rose 0.2 meters between 1901 and 2018, and will rise further over centuries or millennia as heat reaches the depths and ice sheets continue to melt.

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Taking the issue of climate justice to the fore, the scientists emphasize that less developed countries are the most affected. For 30 years, some developing countries have promoted the idea of ​​rich countries funding recovery from climate-related disasters of which they had little share. At the COP27 summit last year, the so-called “loss and damage” debate moved from the third-rail of climate politics to a preliminary agreement on climate aid.

Nations are not powerless to limit future destruction: “With differences across systems and regions, viable, effective and low-cost options for mitigation and adaptation are already available.” Solar and wind power, electric vehicles and green urban infrastructure bring additional benefits. Climate adaptation such as low levels of air pollution has the potential to enhance food security and biodiversity conservation.

Guterres called on developed countries to accelerate their plans, taking forward their 2050 pledge to end emissions by 2040. As part of this, he wants no new coal plants by 2030, the same year as the end of coal in rich countries, an end to them everywhere by 2040 and “all of the new oil and gas” based on International Energy Agency findings. Discontinuing Licensing and Funding”.

“The transition should cover the entire economy,” he said. “Partial pledges won’t cut it.”

In a departure from the synthesis reports issued in previous cycles, this section is devoted to urgency. The world’s leading scientists and representatives of 195 countries agree every word of the following statement:

“The choices and actions implemented this decade will have an impact for thousands of years now and beyond.”