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Russian military forces continued to invade the country, Ukraine with an attack on the capital, Kyiv, and other cities, Ukraine’s leading climate experts withdrew from an international scientific committee – just as the group was finalising their approval of the landmark climate change report late on Saturday.
Two weeks ago, top climate experts from around the globe spent two weeks reviewing the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change investigation. This report outlines how accelerating human-caused global climate change is affecting societies worldwide and natural ecosystems. The report will include recommendations for governments and will be released on Monday.
This is the second part of a global climate assessment that is released every five to seven year. It will provide strategies for adapting and coping with current and future temperature rises, sea level rise, ocean acidification, and extreme weather events.
“We have some delegates from other cities, not only Kyiv, and they were forced to go to shelters,” said climate scientist Svitlana Krakovska, head of the Ukrainian delegation. “But most important is that it’s very difficult to think about climate change impacts when you have impacts of Russian missiles in our Kyiv, and tanks everywhere.”
She hoped, however, that the IPCC Working Group 2 report would receive the attention and coverage it deserves.
It is likely to be the starkest warning yet about the impacts of climate change on people and the planet – notably impacts that are inevitable due to current levels of carbon emissions and related temperature rise. It will also assess preparedness under “adaptation” measures, such as the ability to withstand extreme weather.
It is being published on Monday, in the wake of the Cop26 summit that agreed to increase action to try and limit global warming to 1½ degrees to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
Barely alive
The UN talks have ended in Glasgow were described as keeping the temperature goal alive “but only with a weak pulse”, by conference president Alok Sharma. The surge in fossil fuel prices since – especially natural gas in Europe – has undermined global momentum.
A draft version leaked last year warned of the risk of crossing dangerous thresholds or “tipping points”, where things such as the melting of ice sheets or permafrost, or rainforests becoming grassland, become irreversible, with huge consequences.
It will set out the effects of rising temperatures, which have already reached 1.1 degrees above pre-industrial levels, such as droughts, floods, storms and effects on health, agriculture and cities – as well as cascading and irreversible impacts.
The focus will be on different regions around the globe, as well as vulnerable populations and communities, displacement and migration.
It will be published in advance Mark WattsThe executive director of the C40 Cities group of mayors taking action on climate change, warned the latest report was likely to “paint a grim vision” for big cities from London to Lima.
“City residents are already on the front line of a worsening vulnerability to climate impacts such as deadly flooding, sea-level rise, wildfires, extreme storms and unbearable urban heat. It is obvious that we are now facing the climate crisis. We cannot wait for it. We can still overcome climate breakdown and build a thriving future, but urban adaptation efforts must outpace this new climate reality,” he added.
Poorest communities
Rich countries have been seeking to downplay language on “loss and damage”, according to Christian Aid. Loss and Damage funding is a crucial source of financial assistance to help the poorest communities cope with the devastating climate effects primarily caused by the global north’s emissions.
Christian Aid’s climate justice adviser Nushrat Chowdhury said: “We made real progress at the Cop26 climate summit, getting loss and damage on the global agenda. While wealthy countries were hesitant to establish a fund to deal with these impacts, this made Cop27 close to a breakthrough. Egypt later this year.”
She said that rich nations were trying to stop this progress by attacking the reality loss and damage through IPCC, which is led by countries that claim they are climate leaders like the US and UK.
“It is shameful to see them boasting about their climate achievements in public yet behind closed doors they are doing everything they can to prevent support reaching the most vulnerable,” Ms Chowdhury added.
