Trash Talk #5: What You Need to Know from the IPCC Report
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres calls it a “code red for humanity.”
The IPCC Assessment Report is widely considered the most comprehensive and accurate summary on the current state of climate science. Thus, being aware of its findings and assessments is crucial to having a solid understanding of what is happening on our world. The first volume of the sixth IPCC Assessment Report was recently released on August 9, 2021, and its conclusions have left the climate community reeling (or shaking their heads over what they already knew, but the world has still failed to act on).
If this is your first time hearing of the IPCC though, and if reading a 1,300 page report doesn’t sound like an ideal way to spend a Friday afternoon, fear not as the most important takeaways are summarized for you below.
What is the IPCC Report?
IPCC stands for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the IPCC is the United Nations’ body for assessing the science related to climate change. Formed in 1990, when climate change was becoming a more mainstream concern around the world, the IPCC is tasked with publishing periodic reports to provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments on climate change — its impacts and future risks, as well as options for adaptation and mitigation. They are required to be policy relevant but policy-neutral, outlining findings but refraining from specific recommendations. The previously released fifth report in 2013 was the basis for the Paris Agreements in 2015.
The recently released sixth report is the most comprehensive one to date — the result of a collaboration between 234 authors, drawing from over 14,000 scientific studies and references, along with agreement from all 195 member countries on the language used in the 43 page Summary for Policymakers.
What is even more awesome than the number of collaborators is that all of these collaborators agreed on one thing: the warming of the atmosphere, ocean, and land is “unequivocally” caused by human influence.
What does the report include?
The most telling differentiator of this report from its predecessors is that this is the first time in the IPCC’s 30-year history that it spoke with “certainty about the total responsibility of human activity for rising temperatures.” “In past reports, we’ve had to make that statement more hesitantly. Now it’s a statement of fact,” says Gregory Flato, a vice chair of the group that authored the report.
Additionally, the report emphasizes that climate change is no longer a distant, speculative threat — its effects are already here and now. The goal of the Paris Agreement in 2015 was to try to limit the increase to 1.5°C, and to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C”, widely agreed at the time as the worst-case-scenario we never wanted to touch. However, this IPCC report found that we are already well past 1°C of warming, and staying below 1.5°C is near impossible given how fast the window of opportunity is closing.
It considers five possible future scenarios based on the actions we take starting from today:
- 1.6°C of warming by 2050, dropping to 1.4°C by 2100, can be reached if we drastically reduce carbon emissions in the next few decades, cutting them in half by 2030 and reaching net zero by 2050. While the most optimistic scenario, this is by no means the most realistic.
- 1.7°C of warming by 2050, increasing to 1.8°C by 2100, can be reached if we reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, but not as quickly in the next few years.
- 2.0°C of warming by 2050, increasing to 2.7°C by 2100, can be reached if we follow the policies that are currently being proposed by world governments. Committing to recent claims such as Biden’s April pledge to eliminate America’s net carbon emissions by 2050, or China’s vow to become carbon neutral by 2060, would help us achieve this number. (A reminder, however, that 2°C is already considered really, really bad. And there’s a very real chance it could happen in our lifetime).
- 2.1°C of warming by 2050, increasing to 3.6°C by 2100, can be reached if we eventually reduce our emissions, but not for the next few decades.
- 2.4°C of warming by 2050, increasing to 4.4°C by 2100, can be reached if we change nothing and continue operating at status quo. We’ll call this “apocalypse territory.”
How severe are the impacts?
The bad news is that the severe weather events we are experiencing now are actually the result of emissions that happened decades ago. Furthermore, even if we reduced all carbon emissions to zero today, we’ve still locked in some effects for decades and centuries more.
Even more incentive to start acting as soon as possible, as the alternative outcomes don’t look pretty:
- Human-induced warming has already locked in up to a foot of sea-level rise by 2050. At 2°C we are looking at 1.6 feet by 2050, and at 4°C it would be over 4 feet. Shanghai and Miami are already projected to be completely underwater past 3°C. Unlike other climate changes, sea level rise is effectively irreversible.
- Every region on Earth is already experiencing more weather extremes — intensified heat waves, unprecedented precipitation levels, tropical cyclones, and severe drought. Every incremental degree of warming causes clearly discernible increases in the intensity and frequency of these. Over 50 years, extreme heat events will likely occur 4.8 times at our current levels. If we reach 4°C of warming, these extreme heat events will occur 39.2 times.
- At the global scale, extreme daily precipitation events are projected
to intensify by about 7% for each 1°C of warming. - The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is a large system of ocean currents that is responsible for transferring heat from the tropics to the northern hemisphere. It has been gradually slowing down due to ocean warming. If it were to shut down altogether, a possibility that the IPCC authors state can’t be ruled out, this would severely disrupt the rains that billions of people depend on for food in India, South America and West Africa, increase storms and lower temperatures in Europe, and increase flooding risk in eastern North America.
- Regardless of scenario, the Arctic is likely to be practically sea ice free at least once in the summer before 2050, with more frequent occurrences for higher warming levels. (Goodbye, polar bears.)
What’s important to keep in mind is that rather than a “new normal,” these effects will lead to the eradication of any semblance of “normality,” as a destabilized planet also leads to increasingly unpredictable responses. This is the first report by the IPCC to assess “tipping points” — abrupt and irreversible changes to crucial Earth systems that have huge impacts. Professor Dave Reay, at the University of Edinburgh, UK. says, “it’s clear that every extra ton of CO2 emitted today is pushing us into a minefield of feedback effects tomorrow.”
What can we do in the face of this information?
The good news is… our actions still matter. Robert Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University who helped write the report, says “It’s not like we can draw a sharp line where, if we stay at 1.5°C, we’re safe, and at 2°C or 3°C it’s game over.” Every degree of warming prevented still results in incrementally less suffering.
We need all hands on deck — policymakers, businesses and individuals. We already know the solutions (familiarize yourself with Project Drawdown!), now we just need to act on them.
- Policymakers — current policies in the major polluting countries are still far off-track from achieving targets for mitigation set by the Paris Agreement. Negotiators from virtually every country are currently preparing for COP26, the U.N. climate conference held in Glasgow, Scotland in November. The IPCC report will be a focal point of this conference, stressing the need for urgent action. Primarily, we need to accelerate the transition to clean energy and end our reliance on fossil fuels ASAP.
- Businesses —business leaders can often act more swiftly and effectively than policy makers, so the need for bold, transformative leadership here is crucial. Transformative as in rethinking how business is done. Businesses create GHG emissions in two major ways — 1. the physical products used in their normal business functions, and 2. the energy used in running their businesses. To adapt, businesses need to transition to circular models, examine their scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions (direct, indirect, and supply chain greenhouse gas emissions), and set targets for reduction.
- Individuals —in the face of such daunting news, it’s easy to become frozen in fear, anxiety, or avoidance. My advice? Just pick one thing to change in your life and start there. The solutions to climate change are many, and all of them help. Some examples could be — forgoing meat for at least one meal every day, choosing public transportation more often, switching your electricity provider to a renewable energy provider, or investing in reusable cloth towels rather than paper towels. Personally, I’m going to commit some time to researching ESG funds for investing — I’ve been interested in these for a while but haven’t acted on that interest yet, so I’m making a promise to myself to set up an account with one before the end of this year.
A final word
Katharine Hayhoe summarizes my same sentiments beautifully in her Time Magazine piece, “In the Face of Climate Change, We Must Act So That We Can Feel Hopeful — Not the Other Way Around”:
Some of the impacts of climate change are already here today. Others are inevitable due to all the carbon we’ve emitted over the last few decades. But the IPCC report is clear: the worst can still be avoided. Our future is in our hands.
What can you do? Anything.
It’s my hope that this report, and the worry and concern it generates in each of us, will inspire you to take action, to have a conversation, to be part of the change we need. Why you? Because to care about climate change, we only have to be one thing: a human, living on planet earth.
And if you’re reading this, that’s exactly who you are.
