According to researcher Matthias Garschagen from the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, we are not only running out of time to slow down climate change, but also to adapt. This statement came in response to the release of a new report which summarizes the previous five reports from the UN climate panel IPCC. These reports confirm that climate change affects the entire earth and is caused by human emissions. Unfortunately, the possibility of meeting the 1.5-degree target – established as a goal in the Paris Agreement – is decreasing rapidly. If we continue at the same pace, this goal will be surpassed by 2030.
Since the last summary report in 2014, the situation has worsened according to Erik Kjellström, a professor of climatology at SMHI. Global emissions continue to increase while the earth has become increasingly warmer leading to significant changes in the earth’s climate system. The recent reports also strengthen the link between human impact on climate and extreme weather events. In fact, the adverse effects of climate change are more severe and can occur with less warming than previously thought. This decrease in sustainable or acceptable warming levels is a concerning trend.
Adaptation to climate change is not enough to mitigate its effects according to Markku Rummukainen from SMHI, who is also Sweden’s representative in the IPCC. Rapid reduction in emissions is necessary to limit climate effects on future generations. The IPCC believes that it is possible to reverse the trend, but it will require extensive changes to society. To limit warming to 1.5 degrees, the world must halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
The IPCC report stresses that climate change disproportionately affects the communities most vulnerable and least able to adapt. Almost half of the world’s population lives in areas considered highly vulnerable to climate change. The report emphasizes the need for countries to take decisive action to reduce their carbon footprint and adapt to a changing climate that is creating harmful and dangerous effects for all.
It is essential to remove carbon from the energy sector and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This requires a range of solutions including wind and solar power, electrification, nuclear power, and gas with carbon dioxide separation technology. Countries can take measures to limit the adverse effects of a warmer world, but the report emphasizes the urgency of implementing these solutions. Our actions or inactions have implications for future generations, making it a matter of injustice between generations.
– We are not only running out of time to slow down climate change, we are also running out of time to adapt, says Matthias Garschagen, a researcher at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich who participated in the work on the report, in a press comment.
The new report summarizes the last five reports from the UN climate panel IPCC. These have established that climate change affects the entire earth and is caused by human emissions. The possibility of meeting the 1.5-degree target – which the world has agreed on in the Paris Agreement – is rapidly diminishing. If we continue as now, the goal will already be passed in 2030.
Aggravated situation
The previous summary report came in 2014, and since then the situation has become even more serious, notes Erik Kjellström, professor of climatology at SMHI.
Global emissions continue to increase – at the same time as the earth has continued to get warmer and scientists are seeing ever greater changes in the earth’s climate system. The reports that have come in recent years have also pointed more clearly to the connection between man’s climate impact and extreme weather events.
– The reports have also sharpened the picture: many effects of climate change are more serious and occur at a lower degree of warming than previously seen. The limit for what we think is a sustainable or acceptable level of warming has shrunk, says Kjellström.
– The reasons to be concerned about climate change have become stronger.
Markku Rummukainen from SMHI is Sweden’s representative in the IPCC. He concludes that adaptations are not enough.
– They are not enough to deal with the effects of climate change, we must reduce emissions quickly to also limit the climate effects that we pass on to future generations, he says.
Extensive changes are required
The IPCC states that it is possible to reverse the trend, but it requires extensive changes to society. To have a reasonable chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, the world must halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
According to Markku Rummukainen, the countries agree that there is an ongoing and serious climate change that humans are behind, and it has harmful and dangerous effects for us. However, there are different images of which are the best solutions.
– An issue that has been discussed a lot is techniques for removing carbon dioxide from the air, something that will be needed in parallel with emission reductions. These technologies often require large areas of land or energy and water to be scaled up. Then there could be competition between carbon dioxide capture, land for food production and the preservation of biological diversity, he says.
Away with the coal
An important part of slowing down development concerns energy use. Removing carbon from the energy sector and reducing carbon dioxide emissions is highlighted as crucial. The synthesis report points, among other things, to wind and solar power and electrification, which are now decreasing in price.
– There have been major price reductions and a great potential in the coming ten-year period to scale up wind and solar power more, says Markku Rummukainen.
– But the emissions are so great that we have to resort to all solutions. In some parts of the world, nuclear power can supplement, in others it can be gas with technology to separate carbon dioxide.
The new report is aimed directly at the decision-makers and Erik Kjellström hopes that the politicians, also in Sweden, take to heart the message about the urgency of turning the tide. And that the solutions are actually available.
– I hope that people really take the report seriously and work towards the goals that we set ourselves. Everyone must now show in action that they take climate change very seriously.
Injustice between generations
The IPCC also emphasizes that climate change hits the regions and people who are most vulnerable and least able to adapt the hardest.
Almost half the world’s population lives in regions considered highly vulnerable to climate change, and over the past decade, deaths from floods, droughts and storms were 15 times higher in these regions than in other regions, according to Aditi Mukherji, one of the report’s 93 authors.
At the same time, the countries that are hit the hardest have contributed the least to climate change.
The injustices regarding the effects of a warmer world apply both between countries and generations, emphasizes Erik Kjellström at SMHI:
– Our children and grandchildren are hit harder than us, and what we do now is decisive for how serious the consequences will be for them.
It is an encouraging report presented by the UN climate panel IPCC. Image: Melissa Walsh/IPCC/TT
IPCC chairman Hoesung Lee, from South Korea, together with Abdalah Mokssit who is the IPCC secretary. Image: Antoine Tardy/IPCC/TT
The new report from the UN climate panel IPCC is the most comprehensive evaluation of knowledge and climate change and its consequences to date.
It summarizes the results of the IPCC’s so-called Sixth Assessment of Knowledge (AR6) reports that were published earlier:
2018: special report on 1.5 degrees global warming.
2019: the special reports “Climate change and the land” and “The sea and the cryosphere in a changing climate”, as well as the update of the methodology report Greenhouse gas inventory.
August 2021: Interim report “The scientific foundation”. Stated in stronger language than before that it is “unequivocally that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, oceans and land” and that “widespread and rapid changes have occurred in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere”.
February 2022: Interim report “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability”. Found that the world is doing too little to adapt to rapid climate change. No one is safe, but the people and ecosystems that are most vulnerable and least able to adapt are hit the hardest.
April 2022: Interim report “Limiting climate change”. A kind of toolbox for the world’s decision-makers in terms of solutions to slow down global warming. Points to possible measures in different sectors.
With the new synthesis report, the sixth knowledge evaluation ends. New evaluations are made every five to seven years.
Source: SMHI, National encyclopedia, TT
The UN’s intergovernmental climate panel IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was established in 1988. The aim was to provide decision-makers with regular and comprehensive scientific assessments of climate change.
The IPCC does not conduct its own research but compiles the latest science on climate change.
There are three working groups that each publish a report within each knowledge evaluation cycle. The first highlights the state of scientific knowledge, the second the effects of climate change on the planet and society and the last possible solutions.
The reports must be policy-relevant but still neutral and do not make policy proposals.
195 countries are members of the IPCC.