The continued increase in greenhouse gas emissions posts a grave challenge to the world’s fight against climate change and limit global warming to 1.5C.
In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlighted the unprecedented scale of the challenge required to keep warming to 1.5C. Five years later, that challenge has become even greater due to a continued increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
“The pace and scale of what has been done so far, and current plans, are insufficient to tackle climate change,” IPCC said in a recent report.
More than a century of burning fossil fuels as well as unequal and unsustainable energy and land use has led to global warming of 1.1C above pre-industrial levels. This has resulted in more frequent and more intense extreme weather events that have caused increasingly dangerous impacts on nature and people in every region of the world.
Every increment of warming results in rapidly escalating hazards. More intense heatwaves, heavier rainfall and other weather extremes further increase risks for human health and ecosystems. In every region, people are dying from extreme heat.
Climate-driven food and water insecurity is expected to increase with increased warming. When the risks combine with other adverse events, such as pandemics or conflicts, they become even more difficult to manage.
The IPCC report brings in to sharp focus the losses and damages we are already experiencing and will continue into the future, hitting the most vulnerable people and ecosystems especially hard. Taking the right action now could result in the transformational change essential for a sustainable, equitable world.
“Climate justice is crucial because those who have contributed least to climate change are being disproportionately affected,” said Aditi Mukherji, one of the authors of this Synthesis Report, the closing chapter of the panel’s sixth assessment.
“Almost half of the world’s population lives in regions that are highly vulnerable to climate change. In the last decade, deaths from floods, droughts and storms were 15 times higher in highly vulnerable regions,” Mukherji added.
In this decade, accelerated action to adapt to climate change is essential to close the gap between existing adaptation and what is needed. Meanwhile, keeping warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels requires deep, rapid and sustained greenhouse gas emissions reductions in all sectors.
Emissions should be decreasing by now and will need to be cut by almost half by 2030, if warming is to be limited to 1.5C.
The solution lies in climate resilient development. This involves integrating measures to adapt to climate change with actions to reduce or avoid greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in ways that provide wider benefits.
For example: access to clean energy and technologies improves health, especially for women and children; low-carbon electrification, walking, cycling and public transport enhance air quality, improve health, employment opportunities and deliver equity.
It is important to note that achieving the 1.5C target requires significant and co-ordinated efforts from all stakeholders.
While progress has been made, there is still a long way to go to ensure a sustainable and climate-resilient future for the planet.