Climate Change | The window is closing, warns the IPCC

The IPCC multiplies the warnings to decision-makers around the world in the face of the climate emergency. Decisions made today will have impacts “for thousands of years”, warn scientists in their sixth assessment report.

As expected, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) unveiled its sixth assessment report on Monday since its creation in 1988. If several findings were already known – the report summarizes the six reports published by the IPCC since 2018 – the summary for decision makers of about forty pages serves several warnings to elected officials.

First warning: the opportunity to act (window of opportunity) to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees is “closing quickly”, recalls the IPCC. To achieve this, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must peak by 2025 and then decrease by 43% by 2030. However, current commitments do not allow this target to be reached and even make “more difficult to limit warming to below 2 degrees Celsius”, we warn.

Another caveat: the risks associated with climate change “will be increasingly complex and more difficult to understand”, indicates the IPCC. That’s why scientists point out that every tenth of a degree counts in the fight against global warming.

Higher risks than in 2014

Climate-related risks are also considered higher than those assessed in the fifth IPCC report, published in 2014. Climate science has become more refined and the models used are also increasingly efficient. “For any level of future warming, many climate-related risks are higher than those assessed in the AR5, and projected long-term impacts are up to several times higher than currently observed,” the scientists note.

The report is not kind either with regard to fossil fuels, the main source of GHG emissions on a planetary scale. Achieving carbon neutrality requires a substantial reduction in polluting energies, it is recalled. However, public and private funding for fossil fuels is still greater than the sums invested in reducing GHGs and in measures to adapt to climate change, note the IPCC authors.

To support its message, the report also recalls several key findings established since 2018.

• Between 1850 and 2019, CO emissions₂ of human origin totaled 2400 gigatonnes, of which 42% were released in just 29 years, between 1990 and 2019.
• In 2019, the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere totaled 410 parts per million (ppm), the highest value for at least 2 million years. As a reminder, the IPCC estimates that 350 ppm is the limit not to be crossed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees.
• In 2019, CO emissions₂ emissions totaled 59 gigatonnes, 12% more than in 2010 and 54% more than in 1990. More than three quarters (79%) of 2019 emissions came from the energy, transport and buildings.
• About 10% of the world’s population contributed to GHG emissions in a proportion of 34% to 45%.

Changes already clearly visible

IPCC experts also point out that the planet has warmed by 1.1 degrees since the pre-industrial era. And that the consequences of climate change are already clearly visible everywhere on the planet.

It is estimated that “3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in contexts highly vulnerable to climate change”, particularly in Africa, Central Asia, South America and several small island countries.

Between 2010 and 2020, deaths from floods, droughts and storms in these parts of the world were also 15 times higher than in less vulnerable countries.

This is another important finding of the IPCC: global warming will disproportionately affect the most vulnerable populations. Sad irony: these countries are the ones that have contributed the least to polluting emissions since 1850.

Faced with the magnitude of the crisis, solutions exist, says the IPCC. A rare good news, the growth of annual GHG emissions fell during the decade 2010-2019 (1.3%) compared to the previous one (2.1%). A drop which does not, however, allow the warming to be contained below 2 degrees by the end of the century. Getting there will require “rapid, deep and, in most cases, immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors this decade,” the report said.

The IPCC also reports that the production costs for solar energy (85%), wind (55%) and the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles (85%) have decreased considerably over the last decade. .

A lack of political will

If the solutions are known, the political will does not always seem to be there. The summary for decision-makers reminds us that there are significant gaps between political promises and official GHG reduction targets. The sums invested in the energy transition are also insufficient in all regions of the world.

It remains to be seen whether the past will guarantee the future, as suggested by the UN organization in its press release unveiling its sixth evaluation report.

“In 2018, the IPCC highlighted the unprecedented scale of the challenge to keep warming to 1.5°C. Five years later, this challenge has become even greater due to a continuous increase in greenhouse gas emissions. The pace and scale of what has been done so far, and current plans are insufficient to address climate change. »