In the final part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) sixth assessment on the state of global warming themed on climate mitigation the message is clear: The window for keeping heating below 1.5 degrees Celsius, and limiting catastrophic climate impacts, including worsening wildfires and flooding, has become very small.
The latest UN report on climate change follows earlier UN reports about the science and impacts of the phenomenon and the solutions. Paramount is a more ambitious phase-out of fossil fuels responsible for two-thirds of planet-warming carbon emissions since 1850; and the concurrent electrification of a global energy system powered largely by wind and the sun the cost of renewables has declined up to 85% since 2010, notes the report.
“There’s no magic bullet but there’s a smoking gun, and that’s fossil fuels,” said Nikki Reich, director of the Climate & Energy Program at the Washington, DC-headquartered Center for International Environmental Lawyers.
The IPCC offers mitigation pathways to achieve “immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors,” meaning around a 50% cut in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (relative to 2019 levels) by the end of this decade.
Campaigners had hoped the report would decline to promote carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies to reverse a carbon budget blow-out. However, carbon capture and storage (CCS), though unproven at scale, remains a fall-back option.
Protecting forests and biodiversity which provide vital CO2 sinks and improved building efficiency and transport electrification are essential parts of the mitigation pathways outlined in the 3000-odd page report.
An increase in public sector climate finance and an equitable and just transition for poorer countries with low per capita emissions will also be vital for meeting global mitigation goals.
Governments must phase out fossil fuels
No nation is currently on track towards meeting the Paris targets to keep global warming well below 2°C and ideally below 1°C.
The current National Climate Plans (NDCs), which are currently in effect, target a temperature increase of about 3.2C this century. Extreme weather and ice melt across the Arctic are already being felt with only around Heating: 1.2C since pre-industrial times.
The report stated that 1.5C warming cannot be restricted if emissions do not peak by 2025. Also, global net zero CO2 emissions must be achieved by the 2050s.
The latest IPCC report will give governments the reason to set emission reduction targets. Thirty-two years since the IPCC’s first climate report, emissions have risen by 54%, according to the climate body.
“This IPCC report has put policymakers on notice, once again, that global heat-trapping emissions are on an alarmingly wrong track,” Rachel Cleetus, policy Director and lead economist for Climate and Energy Program, Washington, D.C. Union of Concerned Scientists, and an official observer of climate mitigation report.
“Their continued inaction directly contributes to the climate crisis already here, as well as placing the goals of the Paris Agreement in grave danger,” she said.
Linda Schneider, senior program manager for International Climate Policy at Heinrich Bll Foundation Berlin, said that “a faster fossil fuel phase out really needs to happen.”
Renewable energy technology is available, but it needs to be greatly increased.
100% wind and solar energy combined with biodiversity restoration and “demand-side” measures included in the report such as low-carbon vegetarian diets and reduced consumption in the global north need to form part of government mitigation policy, said Schneider.
Fears of an “overshoot” and negative emissions
Some of the mitigation pathways included in the report factor in “negative emission” technologies such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) by which trees feed power plants whose emissions will be captured at a future date when the technology is available.
The practice is regarded as carbon negative by the IPCC, and the EU, because the trees that feed the bioenergy plants are deemed sustainable even if a large amount of forest and agricultural land will be lost to support the necessary tree plantations.
Schneider said that carbon capture technology is still at the pilot stage, and not “a real world solution.”
“The [report’s]She said that the central climate mitigation strategy for phasing out fossil fuels, starting immediately, is often diluted by references to technofixes meant to keep fossil fuel industry alive.”
Relying on unproven CDR technology also poses a threat to the 1.5C warming limit.
Climate change mitigation begins with stopping deforestation
CDR technologies will ensure that temperatures drop again. Schneider explained that it could already be too late, however, if irreversible points have been triggered. These include the thawing permafrost zones that are huge carbon sinks and causing additional greenhouse gasses that would greatly accelerate global warming.
There is a concern that CDR will be a means to postpone immediate emission cuts.
“To avoid worst-case scenarios, unmanageable effects, the promise of future negative emissions must not be used as an excuse for not taking action on efficiency, deployment of renewables, and risk management at E3G,” Taylor Dimsdale (director of risk and resilience, global climate thinktank, E3G) said.
Schneider stated that it was “very uncertain” if 1.5 can be reached. He also noted that feedbacks and tipping points could occur before 1.5 degrees are reached.
The ‘co-benefits’ of mitigation
Alexandre Kberle, a Grantham Institute, Imperial College London research fellow, and the lead author of the IPCC publication, believes that the calculated Cost of mitigation in the report needed to account for “the impacts that we would avoid if we tackle climate change.”
Mitigation costs in the report are again measured in terms of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) a measurement that IPCC Working Group III Co-Chair Priyadarshi Shukla concedes does not take into account “the economic benefits of reduced adaptation costs or avoided climate impacts.”
Shukla says that GDP would still be “just a few percent lower in 2050” if the necessary actions are taken to limit global warming to 2C.
Yet Kberle says GDP is an “awful metric” that will not give necessary clarity for politicians wanting to convince the public of the benefits of a full energy transition.
The “co-benefits” of mitigation policies such as reduced air pollution and improved respiratory health are also not counted, he notes; nor is energy sovereignty and reduced dependence on external energy suppliers especially at a time when Europe is trying to reduce its dependence on Russian gas and oil.
The IPCC will now finalize its mammoth sixth assessment, the first since 2014, for release in September on the eve of COP27 when governments are expected to update their NDCs and commit to a more ambitious fossil fuel phase-out.
Edited By: Tamsin W. Walker
