The latest UN climate report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change proposes robust solutions, justice and speed. But is any of it actually resonating?
The lengthy report shows the findings of eight years of research by hundreds of the world's leading climate scientists. We’re sharing a summary of the work because it needs to penetrate public awareness and prompt high-level action faster.
What is needed? Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.
Climate Covering Now, the world's largest collective of climate-action journalists – digested this landmark Summary For Policymakers (to give the report its official name) and converted it into plain English:
‘Borrowing the title of this year’s Oscar for Best Picture, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that countries must now do “everything, everywhere, all at once” to limit heat-trapping emissions. That means – per the International Energy Agency – zero new oil, gas or coal development.’
They highlighted neglect from the two biggest polluters: the United States (which has just green-lit the Willow oil project in Alaska) and China (constructing more than a hundred 106 gigawatts-worth of new coal plants).
Read CCNow's eight-point summary.
Act now or it will be too late.
Theories and innovations abound, and solutions are in circulation. But, as IPCC chair Hoesung Lee stresses, we must act now to secure a liveable, sustainable future for all. The Guardian, a leading voice in climate action, boiled the report down to a single line: ‘Act now, or it will be too late.’
Read the article.Global warming will soon reach 1.5C
The Financial Times emphasised that we’re unlikely to meet Paris Agreement 2030 targets:
‘Global warming is “more likely than not”, in the near-term, to reach a 1.5C rise since pre-industrial times, the world’s top scientists said. And climate change taking place now will continue across the lifespan of three generations born in 1950, 1970 and 2020.’
World on ‘thin ice’ declared Associated Press
Widely accepted to be the most neutral and unbiased news source, Associated Press said of the report released this week:
'To stay under the warming limit set in Paris, the world needs to cut 60% of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 – compared with 2019 – adding a new target not previously mentioned in six previous reports issued since 2018.’
Credit: “I don't believe in Global Warming”: Climate change denial by Banksy
Rich nations are failing to help the developing world adapt
‘Increasing weather and climate extreme events have exposed millions of people to acute food insecurity and reduced water security, with the largest adverse impacts observed in many locations and/or communities in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, LDCs, Small Islands and the Arctic, and globally for Indigenous Peoples, small-scale food producers and low-income households,’ the IPPC report states.
In response, CCNow says: ‘The world has plenty of money to tackle this problem, but Global North countries and institutions must finally fulfil their legal obligation to provide $100 billion in annual climate aid — and much more than that going forward.’‘Increasing weather and climate extreme events have exposed millions of people to acute food insecurity and reduced water security, with the largest adverse impacts observed in many locations and/or communities in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, LDCs, Small Islands and the Arctic, and globally for Indigenous Peoples, small-scale food producers and low-income households,’ the IPPC report states.
In response, CCNow says: ‘The world has plenty of money to tackle this problem, but Global North countries and institutions must finally fulfil their legal obligation to provide $100 billion in annual climate aid — and much more than that going forward.’'It is a huge injustice,' Aditi Mukherji, one of the authors of the report told Climate Home News. 'Least developed countries and coastal communities who have not caused the problem are now having to take loans to solve the problem. It makes hardly any sense.'
You don't need to read all of the tens of thousands of words of the fourth and final Synthesis Report — the last of the Sixth Assessment Reports — to understand that the extraction and combustion of oil, gas and coal – and the too-slow transition to green energy — is the biggest hurdle. It’s also clear that climate action is often at odds with the profit-led priorities of big business.
Half the world is already highly vulnerable to climate change
At the Young Hospitality Summit at Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne 2023, Bouteco founder Juliet Kinsman emphasised that almost half of the world’s population is already living on the frontline of extreme weather and floods, drought and storms.
The latest in her Weeva-powered talks made clear that history will remember those in the Global North who did nothing to support those in the South. She drew parallels to those who profited from slavery and did nothing to take social inequality.