World's leading climate scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have warned that the world is on track to breach the 1.5 degree Celsius global warming limit by the 2030s. Releasing the Climate Change 2023 report on 20th March 2023, the UN-backed body has put forward a synthesis of the climate data that culminates a set of ground-breaking scientific reports since 2018. The report noticeably aims at policymakers and governments on the need for urgent climate action.
What is the IPCC Synthesis Report?
- The IPCC Synthesis Report is a summary report produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It is a key scientific report that will be the final word for climate action until 2030. It aims to provide policymakers with a concise overview of the current state of knowledge on climate change, its impacts, and options for mitigation and adaptation.
- The Synthesis Report is released at the end of each assessment cycle, this one concludes the sixth such cycle and is called the AR6 or Assessment Report 6. The previous round, AR 5, concluded in 2014 and was the key scientific document that helped shape the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
- The Synthesis Report is a compilation of the main findings of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, based on results from three Working Groups (WGs):
WG I evaluated the physical science basis of climate change
WG II evaluated the impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability
WG III evaluated the mitigation
Scientists have identified multiple options available now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change caused by humans. IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee emphasizes the need for more ambitious action to secure a sustainable future.
“Transformational changes are more likely to succeed where there is trust, where everyone works together to prioritize risk reduction, and where benefits and burdens are shared equitably,” Lee said. “We live in a diverse world in which everyone has different responsibilities and different opportunities to bring about change. Some can do a lot while others will need support to help them manage the change.”
Co-operation as a crucial force in fighting climate change
- The report emphasizes the importance of international cooperation, ecosystem stewardship, and inclusive governance for effective and equitable climate action.
- Governments, investors, central banks, and financial regulators all have a role to play in reducing barriers to climate investments and achieving global climate goals. There are tried and tested policy measures that can work to achieve deep emissions reductions and climate resilience if they are scaled up and applied more widely.
- Political commitment, coordinated policies, and clear signals to investors are key to reducing these barriers.
To be effective, these choices need to be rooted in our diverse values, worldviews, and knowledge, including scientific knowledge, Indigenous Knowledge, and local knowledge.
Adaptation
The report highlights the urgency of the challenge to keep warming below 1.5°C, which requires deep, rapid, and sustained greenhouse gas emissions reductions in all sectors. The baseline year for global warming assessments is 1850. Currently, global temperatures are up by 1.1 degrees since 1850, and the goal is to limit this rise to 1.5 degrees by 2100. The Synthesis Report, also called the Climate Change 2023 report is clear that an overshoot of this limit is inevitable but deep and sustained cuts to fresh emissions, leading to net negative carbon emissions after 2050, would mean that global heating can be brought back down to 1.5 or lower by 2100.
- The report stresses the importance of climate-resilient development, which involves integrating measures to adapt to climate change with actions to reduce or avoid greenhouse gas emissions in ways that provide wider benefits.
- It also states that accelerated action to adapt to climate change is essential to close the gap between existing adaptation and what is needed, and every increment of warming results in rapidly escalating hazards.
Equitable Solutions
The report emphasizes the need for climate justice and brings into sharp focus the losses and damages we are already experiencing and will continue into the future, hitting the most vulnerable people and ecosystems especially hard.
“Climate justice is crucial because those who have contributed least to climate change are being disproportionately affected,” said Aditi Mukherji, one of the 93 authors of this Synthesis Report, in the closing chapter of the Panel’s sixth assessment.
“Almost half of the world’s population lives in regions that are highly vulnerable to climate change. In the last decade, deaths from floods, droughts, and storms were 15 times higher in highly vulnerable regions,“ she added.
The report calls for effective and equitable conservation of approximately 30-50% of the Earth’s land, freshwater, and ocean to help ensure a healthy planet.
The report outlines that by sharing best practices, technology, effective policy measures, and mobilizing sufficient finance, any community can decrease or prevent the usage of carbon-intensive consumption methods.
Climate Change and Marginalized Communities
One of the report’s authors, Christopher Trisos said, “The greatest gains in wellbeing could come from prioritizing climate risk reduction for low-income and marginalised communities, including people living in informal settlements”.
Both Hasiru Dala Innovations Private Limited and its sister organisation, Hasiru Dala, the not-for-profit, work with waste pickers, the most marginalized amongst the urban poor to improve their resilience to climate change through social and economic integration. Our ethos of Inclusive Circularity™, endeavours to improve their quality of life through both social and economic interventions covering entrepreneurship & predictable livelihood opportunities in the evolving circular economy, education for the children, healthcare, and housing for the families, as well as policy advocacy at local, state and central government levels.
Tweeting on March 20th, the day of the release of the report, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “The climate time-bomb is ticking but the latest IPCC report shows that we have the knowledge & resources to tackle the climate crisis.”
Do read more from the report on the IPCC website here.
References
https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/key-takeaway-of-the-ipcc-synthesis-report/
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/
https://www.unep.org/resources/report/climate-change-2023-synthesis-report
https://www.newsclick.in/ipcc-report-worlds-standing-burning-deck
