Governments vet crucial UN climate science report

Governments vet crucial UN climate science report

Pakistan is still reeling from flooding in 2022 that was amplified by climate change
Pakistan is still reeling from flooding in 2022 that was amplified by climate change. Photo: Fida HUSSAIN / AFP/File
Source: AFP

PAY ATTENTION: Enjoy reading our stories? Join YEN.com.gh's Telegram channel for more!

Diplomats from nearly 200 nations and top climate scientists began a week-long huddle in Switzerland on Monday to distil nearly a decade of published science into a 20-odd-page warning about the existential danger of global warming and what to do about it.

The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's synthesis report -- to be released on March 20 -- will detail observed and projected changes in Earth's climate system; past and future impacts such as devastating heatwaves, flooding and rising seas; and ways to halt the carbon pollution pushing Earth toward an unliveable state.

"It's a massive moment, seven years since the Paris Agreement and nine years since the last IPCC assessment report," Greenpeace Nordic senior policy advisor Kaisa Kosonen, an official observer at IPCC meetings, told AFP.

Since its creation in 1988, the IPCC -- an intergovernmental body staffed by hundreds of scientists who work for it on a volunteer basis -- has released six three-part assessments, the most recent in 2021-2022.

Read also

Saudi Aramco reports 'record' $161 billion profit for 2022

Greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow, despite scientists warning of the deadly consequences
Greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow, despite scientists warning of the deadly consequences. Photo: ANGELOS TZORTZINIS / AFP/File
Source: AFP

PAY ATTENTION: Follow us on Instagram - get the most important news directly in your favourite app!

"It is scientists telling governments how they are doing during these crucial defining years," Kosonen said.

The report card is not good. Global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to grow, even as science has cautioned that deadly consequences are coming sooner and at lower levels of warming than previously thought.

Since the late 19th century, Earth's average surface temperature has risen more than 1.1 degrees Celsius, enough to amplify a crescendo of weather catastrophes on every continent.

Carbon budgets

This warming, the IPCC has concluded, is overwhelmingly caused by burning oil, gas and coal. In a video message on Monday UN secretary general Antonio Guterres urged world leaders who will gather in December at the COP28 climate summit "to accelerate the phasing out of fossil fuels".

Read also

UK economic rebound eases recession fear before budget

Under the 2015 Paris treaty, nations promised to collectively cap the rise in the planet's average temperature at "well below" 2C, and at 1.5C if possible.

An IPCC special report in 2018 made it alarmingly clear that the more ambitious aspirational goal -- since adopted by governments and business as a hard target -- was a better bet for a climate-safe world.

But an already narrow pathway has become a tightrope. Humanity's "carbon budget" for staying under the 1.5C barrier is less than 300 billion tonnes of CO2, barely seven times current yearly emissions, according to the IPCC.

Global temperature anomalies by month from 1880 to 2022
Global temperature anomalies by month from 1880 to 2022. Photo: Julia Han JANICKI / AFP/File
Source: AFP

Two other special reports -- one on oceans and Earth's frozen zones, the other on forests and land use -- will also be covered in the summary for policymakers under review in Interlaken.

"The synthesis report matters because it will be the last IPCC product for some years, and one of the major sources of knowledge to be considered in the first global stocktake under the Paris Agreement," Oliver Geden, one of report's lead authors and a senior fellow at the German Institute for International Security Affairs, told AFP.

Read also

Tourism announces its return at Berlin fair, defying inflation

To be unveiled ahead of COP28 in Dubai, the global stocktake will confront nations with the deep inadequacy of their Paris pledges to cut emissions, which would allow global temperatures to rise 2.8C above the preindustrial benchmark.

Among the IPCC findings that could be highlighted in the synthesis report is the looming threat of deadly heat.

'More politicised'

Even in a 1.8C world -- an optimistic scenario, according to some scientists -- half of humanity could, by 2100, be exposed to periods of life-threatening climate conditions arising from the coupled impacts of extreme heat and humidity.

There are similarly dire projections for health, the global food system and economic productivity.

"What is at stake matters to everyone on the planet -- our ability to have healthy, nutritious and affordable food, both now and in the future," said Rachel Bezner Kerr, a professor at Cornell University and an IPCC lead author for the most recent report on climate impacts.

Read also

US firm bids to stop contested DR Congo oil auction

Decarbonizing the global economy entails rapidly phasing out coal-fired power
Decarbonizing the global economy entails rapidly phasing out coal-fired power. Photo: MARCO LONGARI / AFP/File
Source: AFP

Floods last year that covered large swathes of Pakistan and ongoing drought in East Africa both bear the fingerprint of climate change.

The synthesis report will also reflect debate over the best way to decarbonise the global economy, with some emphasising the need to rapidly phase out fossil fuel use and reduce consumer demand, and others the potential of technological solutions.

Diplomats in Interlaken vetting the text line by line cannot change the science in the underlying 10,750 pages of reports but they can decide what to leave in or out and can highlight -- or obscure -- things through wording.

"Over time, IPCC meetings became more politicised as government representatives -- mainly, but not exclusively, from oil-producing states -- interfered in the scientists' discussions," the journal Nature said in a recent editorial.

Despite that, "the main IPCC studies have an extraordinary reach, informing everything from global climate agreements ... to the school climate strikes movement Fridays of Future", the journal said.

New feature: Сheck out news that is picked for YOU ➡️ click on “Recommended for you” and enjoy!

Source: AFP

Authors:
AFP avatar

AFP AFP text, photo, graphic, audio or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium. AFP news material may not be stored in whole or in part in a computer or otherwise except for personal and non-commercial use. AFP will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions in any AFP news material or in transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages whatsoever. As a newswire service, AFP does not obtain releases from subjects, individuals, groups or entities contained in its photographs, videos, graphics or quoted in its texts. Further, no clearance is obtained from the owners of any trademarks or copyrighted materials whose marks and materials are included in AFP material. Therefore you will be solely responsible for obtaining any and all necessary releases from whatever individuals and/or entities necessary for any uses of AFP material.