The impacts of climate crisis are worse than anticipated and governments must adapt more urgently or face global catastrophe, warned the UK president at the UN climate talks. He spoke out on the eve to a landmark new scientific assessment about the climate.
Alok Sharma, who facilitated the Cop26 summit on climate last year, stated that the changes in the climate are affecting us sooner than we thought. The effects on our daily lives are going to be more severe and dramatic. If we don’t prepare now, based upon the clear science available, we will do ourselves and our communities a great disservice.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will publish a report on Monday. It will show that heatwaves, droughts, and floods will increase in severity and frequency. This will have devastating consequences and will affect all regions of the globe.
Sharma also stated that climate negotiations must continue this year at international forums, such as the G20. This is despite Russia’s invasion. Russia is now a G20 member, having been expelled from G8 due to its annexation in Crimea. Sharma claimed that he spoke with his Russian counterpart several weeks ago, before the current escalation. However, they have not spoken since.
The IPCC, the UN-convened body composed of the top climate scientists around the world, has produced a new report that is more than seven years old. It draws on the work of thousands and is expected to show how climate breakdown is pushing humanity to the brink. There is urgent work to prevent these catastrophic impacts from happening.
Sharma said to the Guardian, speaking before publication: Based on science [of recent years]It is expected that the report will reveal that climate change impacts over the past decade have been greater than predicted. This is a reminder to policymakers to take immediate action.
He said that countries must act now. If we do not act now, the costs and the impacts will be much greater in the future.
Sharma pointed out that the Cop26 governments of rich nations agreed to double their aid for the poor world to adapt to climate change by 2025. He stated that we made more progress in this area than previous Cops. He said that rich countries should also be prepared to protect themselves. The UK has spent 5bn to prepare its national flood-resilience plan and spends 5bn on flood damage.
Some of the IPCCs findings could be controversial. Glasgow was divided on the issue of loss and damage. This refers specifically to the worst impacts of the crisis. For example, villages being swept away in hurricanes or land being lost to rising waters.
Poor countries want the rich to recognize the damage and loss they have suffered and provide funding accordingly. However, rich countries have been slow in agreeing to additional funding, despite their longstanding commitment to provide $100bn (75bn annually) to poor countries to reduce their carbon emissions and adapt to climate impacts.
Cop27 will be attended by many civil society groups and developing countries. Sharma discredited those hopes, pointing out a Cop26 agreement to create a four year programme to examine loss or damage. He said that countries had been asked to make formal submissions about all of this. We’ll see how those conversations go and where that dialogue leads us.
Monday’s IPCC publication, the second of four parts to the sixth assessment report, is the latest in an ongoing series of comprehensive summaries that cover the entire history of the climate. The first part, which was published in August, demonstrated that climate change was clearly caused by human activities and was causing irreversible changes. A third part will be published in April and will describe the options for dealing with the crisis.
The IPCC reports take between five to seven years to compile. This assessment is likely to be the last before there is no way to stop the worst effects of climate collapse. The IPCC previously warned that emissions must be reduced by half by 2030 to keep within 1.5C. However, after the global plunge due to the lockdowns, carbon dioxide emissions have rebounded and are expected to rise again this year.
