1.5°C overshoot to cause irreversible harm: IPCC
“Humanity is on thin ice — and that ice is melting fast,” United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres said. “Our world needs climate action on all fronts — everything, everywhere, all at once.”
The world is on course to overshoot the 1.5°C global warming threshold, which will lead to irreversible harm and risks for human and natural climate systems, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a key report released on Monday, with the authors portending the “worst impacts on India and South Asia” of the climate crisis.
The assessment released as the IPCC’s Synthesis Report for the sixth assessment, also stressed that humanity still has a chance to prevent the worst of future harms, the United Nations panel of scientists said, underscoring a now-or-never chance of softening the blow from the climate crisis.
“Humanity is on thin ice — and that ice is melting fast,” United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres said. “Our world needs climate action on all fronts — everything, everywhere, all at once.”
The report added the urgent steps require quickly slashing carbon pollution and fossil fuel use by nearly two-thirds by 2035 while the UN chief called for an immediate halt to new fossil fuel exploration and for rich countries to quit coal, oil and gas by 2040.
The IPCC report indicated that to prevent the overshoot of 1.5°C was a matter of survival since every incremental increase beyond that intensify multiple and concurrent hazards, that will result in irreversible adverse impacts on polar, mountain, and coastal ecosystems, where as ice sheets and glaciers melt and the sea-level rises.
“While we in India probably have very little to do with accelerating global warming, there is no doubt that we are a very large economy and we do have a very significant contribution ongoing to global mitigation. As a very large country in geography unfortunately we will be impacted quite heavily,” said Dipak Dasgupta, Distinguished Fellow, The Energy Resource Institute and IPCC co-author.
“The report will give us pointers to taking steps to transition faster and manage climate extremes like very high summer heat that’s going to be impacting our cities across India, especially the coastal cities where the combination of high humidity and heat for several months will be a difficult challenge,” Dasgupta added.
Guterres, citing the report, said the assessments show the 1.5°C threshold is not impossible, but will require “a quantum leap in climate action”.
“I have proposed to the G20 a Climate Solidarity Pact – in which all big emitters make extra efforts to cut emissions, and wealthier countries mobilise financial and technical resources to support emerging economies in a common effort to keep 1.5 degrees alive… It starts with parties immediately hitting the fast-forward button on their net zero deadlines to get to global net zero by 2050 – in line with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances. Specifically, leaders of developed countries must commit to reaching net zero as close as possible to 2040, the limit they should all aim to respect,” he added.
India holds the G20 presidency this year.
Welcoming the report, Union minister for environment, forest and climate change Bhupender Yadav said, “The report confirms climate change as one of the key environmental challenges facing humanity. The Synthesis Report for Policy Makers endorses India’s call for equity and climate justice.”
In a series of tweets, Yadav said, “AR6-SYR reaffirms the role of unequal historical and ongoing contributions to GHG emissions. Role of unsustainable lifestyles and patterns of consumption and production have been emphasized along with unsustainable energy use.”
Common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) is a principle that while all countries work to cut emissions and mitigate the impact of climate change, developed countries must do more since they have historically contributed the highest amounts of greenhouse gases that have driven the world’s climate to the brink.
The report is part of the sixth assessment report (AR6), with the next comprehensive stock-take, which takes multiple years to draw up, not expected till 2030, by when most predictions peg warming to have crossed the 1.5°C.
Today, the world has already breached 1.1°C warming, compared to pre-industrial levels. “Human -caused climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. This has led to widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people. Vulnerable communities who have historically contributed the least to current climate change are disproportionately affected,” it said. These findings have strengthened since the AR5 cycle of IPCC.
Human influence has likely increased the chance of compound extreme events since the 1950s, including increases in the frequency of concurrent heatwaves and droughts. Approximately 3.3 –3.6 billion people are highly vulnerable to climate change, the AR6 assessments have found.
Between 2010 and 2020, human mortality from floods, droughts and storms was 15 times higher in highly vulnerable regions, compared to regions with very low vulnerability. Climate change has caused widespread adverse impacts and related “losses and damages” to nature and people that are unequally distributed across regions, the synthesis report reiterated.
The synthesis report was drawn up in Interlaken where 195 countries negotiated and approved line by line the summary for policy makers – a process that was delayed by nearly 20 hours mainly because of contentions over equity-related matters among developed and developing countries.
The report found that nationally determined contributions (NDCs), the commitments countries have put in writing, and submitted till COP26 in Glasgow may make preventing even a 2°C warming unlikely.
Global GHG emissions in 2030 implied by NDCs announced as on October 2021 make it likely that warming will exceed 1.5°C during the 21st century and make it harder to limit warming below 2°C.
The IPCC report has pointed out that every additional increment in global warming, changes in extremes will become even larger: this will mean the further impact on the global water cycle, which will make rainy seasons rainier and droughts drier, and increase the frequency of heatwaves – all trends that will impact India.
Due to relative sea level rise, current 1-in-100 year extreme sea level events are projected to occur at least annually in more than half of all tide gauge locations in all emission scenarios. There will be intensification of tropical cyclones and/or extratropical storms, and increases in aridity and fire weather.
Further, the IPCC flagged that climatic and non -climatic risks will increasingly interact, creating compound and cascading risks that are more complex and difficult to manage.
“The new IPCC report shows the writing clearly on the wall. Governments have no excuse to ignore the emphatic warning for this critical decade. They must act fast to reject fossil fuels and stop any new expansion of oil, gas and coal. The blueprint for climate action presented by the IPCC is not short of solutions and infused with enough hope…Every fraction of a degree of warming puts us closer to breaching the 1.5°C survival threshold. The governments must strengthen efforts to protect communities from worsening and irreversible climate impacts, such as sea-level rise and melting of glaciers, which pose an existential threat to many communities. Scaling up finance must be the key lever to make the transition to a climate stable future in a just and equitable manner,” said Harjeet Singh, head of Global Political Strategy, Climate Action Network International, who was an observer at the IPCC approval meeting in Interlaken, Switzerland ahead of the report release.
For the first time, IPCC has a box on global modelled emission pathways which may be biased and inequitable. Those based on cost effective approaches contain regionally differentiated assumptions and outcomes, and have to be assessed with the careful recognition of these assumptions.
Most do not make explicit assumptions about global equity, environmental justice or intra -regional income distribution, the IPCC said.
“IPCC is neutral with regard to the assumptions underlying the scenarios in the literature assessed in this report, which do not cover all possible futures,” the report said.
Experts in the past have highlighted the issues with IPCC’s modelled pathways. A policy brief released by prepared by the Climate Change Programme at the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), Chennai, and the Energy, Environment and Climate Change Programme at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru in November last year said that the scenarios for global mitigation pathways considered by IPCC project a highly unequal future world that perpetuates most inequalities, HT had reported.
“The economic pathways and models used especially the mitigation models are not real world and don’t present all possible futures. They are built by economists who follow a certain school of economics and they are structurally biased. Several analyses have highlighted this bias, including the fact that most scenarios assume the rich parts of the world to get richer and poor parts poorer and delay climate action into the future,” Lili Fuhr from the Center for International Environmental Law has said on Friday.
“There were a number of really legitimate concerns, and delegations wanted to bring them to the table. That just took time to go through. Those included, discussing the scenarios and pathways, equity across the board, carbon budgets, climate finance, a number of issues, because each and every country has a different focus. Small countries and developing countries came with very small delegations. Some didn’t come at all, some with only one person so to organize a process that was both effective and speedy, and that also was inclusive was quite a challenge, and didn’t work out in the best way throughout the entire week,” Fuhr added.
Carbon capture
The IPCC said carbon dioxide removal (CDR) will be necessary to achieve net -negative CO2 emissions. Net zero GHG emissions, if sustained, are projected to result in a gradual decline in global surface temperatures after an earlier peak. This was one of the contentious issues discussed at the meeting in Interlaken. Only a small number of the most ambitious global modelled pathways limit global warming to 1.5°C by 2100 without exceeding this level temporarily. Achieving and sustaining net negative global CO 2 emissions, with annual rates of carbon dioxide removal greater than residual CO 2 emissions, would gradually reduce the warming level again, the IPCC said while also flagging that CDR technologies are high risk and have several feasibility concerns. “The larger the overshoot, the more net negative CO 2 emissions would be needed to return to 1.5°C. Transitioning towards net zero CO 2 emissions faster and reducing non -CO 2 emissions such as methane more rapidly would limit peak warming levels and reduce the requirement for net negative CO 2 emissions, thereby reducing feasibility and sustainability concerns, and social and environmental risks associated with CDR deployment at large scales,” the report said. IPCC mentions biological CDR methods like reforestation, improved forest management, soil carbon sequestration, peatland restoration and coastal blue carbon management can enhance biodiversity and ecosystem functions, employment and local livelihoods. “However, afforestation or production of biomass crops can have adverse socio -economic and environmental impacts, including on biodiversity, food and water security, local livelihoods and the rights of Indigenous peoples, especially if implemented at large scales and where land tenure is insecure,” IPCC said.
“Prioritising equity, climate justice, social justice, inclusion and just transition processes can enable adaptation and ambitious mitigation actions and climate resilient development. Adaptation outcomes are enhanced by increased support to regions and people with the highest vulnerability to climatic hazards. Integrating climate adaptation into social protection programs improves resilience,” IPCC saif.
“Many options are available for reducing emission-intensive consumption, including through behavioural and lifestyle changes, with co-benefits for societal well-being,” IPCC added.
“Delayed mitigation action will further increase global warming and, losses and damages will rise and additional human and natural systems will reach adaptation limits,” IPCC said.
“Challenges from delayed adaptation and mitigation actions include the risk of cost escalation, lock-in of infrastructure, stranded assets, and reduced feasibility and effectiveness of adaptation and mitigation options,” it added. Highest adverse impacts in Africa, least developed, small islands, Central and South America, Asia and the Arctic and will disproportionately affect the most vulnerable populations.