What You Need to Know about the UN Climate Report

global carbon dioxide emissions pathway

Last month, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) put out a special report looking at the difference in climate impacts that we might see if we were able to keep global warming to 1.5°C rather than the 2°C target that has dominated climate change mitigation efforts until now. The dire warnings in the report got a little bit of news coverage, but what are we meant to do with it?  There’s a great post on Skeptical Science that distills the report down to a very simple bottom line:

We need to cut carbon pollution as much as possible, as fast as possible.

 

1.5 degrees is the new 2 degrees

The Paris Agreement set a goal to keep global warming to “well-below 2°C”, as scientists have begun to find some very substantial impacts of warming at 2 degrees.  The signatories commissioned this latest report to look at the impacts of a 1.5 degree warmer world, and to identify emissions pathways that would keep warming to 1.5 degrees.

For context, the world has already warmed 1 degree C since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. At our current pace we’re on track to see at least 3 degrees of warming by the end of the century.

The report finds some big potential impacts once you get past 1.5 degrees, with 2 degrees of warming looking like it would be pretty bad.  To take one example, coral reefs are likely to disappear completely by the time we reach 2 degrees. If you want to get into more detail on the differences between 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees of warming, head over to Carbon Brief’s Interactive explainer.

 

It’s Go Time

The report lays out two roads to 1.5 degrees C.  In the first, we make major, immediate cuts to emissions and max out global temps just under the 1.5 degree target.  In the second, we take a little longer to make those major cuts. We shoot past 1.5 degrees C, but are able to pull enough carbon out of the atmosphere to get temperatures to eventually settle down to 1.5 degrees.

At the rate we’re currently pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, we’re on track to hit 1.5 degrees of warming around 2040.  Unless we then immediately stop all emissions, the temperature will keep rising.  The more carbon dioxide we emit, the higher global temperatures will rise.

If we want to stay on the first road, where we limit warming to 1.5 degrees, we have to cut global carbon dioxide emissions by 45% by 2030. That’s cutting emissions by nearly half. Over the next decade.  If we miss the target, we’re looking at warming of 2-3 degrees unless we can pull enough carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.  We’re working hard on technology that will be capable of doing this, but it’s not yet certain that reversing climate change would really work. There are pilot studies happening, but no technology has been proven to be able to scale to the level we need to bring down atmospheric carbon dioxide to the degree that we’d need to if we don’t rise to this challenge.

 

global carbon dioxide emissions pathway

 

Governments are going to need to make big, economy-wide changes

Cutting global emissions by half over ten years is a colossal undertaking.  It’s going to require major, unprecedented efforts by governments to restructure the global economy.  The Paris Agreement commitments are a good start to get momentum going, but they’re nowhere near ambitious enough.

We need to be putting major pressure on our governments to step up.  We need to phase out coal starting now, promote renewables, update the electric grid to handle distributed energy generation, launch a major campaign to insulate old homes, tighten fuel economy standards, improve public transportation, promote R&D, put a price on carbon. All of it. ASAP.

But while that is happening, there’s a lot ordinary people can do to help speed things along.

To be sure, your personal carbon dioxide emissions are a tiny drop compared to global emissions. But here’s the thing:  if the entire world needs to cut its emissions in half over the next ten years, then so does each and every one of us.  We all live here.

Fortunately, cutting your own household’s carbon emissions by half over the next decade is completely doable.  We’re going to do it together.

Most of the news coverage I’ve seen has described this new report as bleak and depressing, and they’re not wrong.  It basically says that if we don’t turn the world economy on a dime, then we’d better hope for a technological miracle or we’re all doomed.  But we already knew that.  The IPCC has been shouting as much in report after report after report for the last 30 years.  What I see in the most recent report is a path and a call to action.  It says that it is still possible to keep global warming to non-catastrophic levels.  If we get our butts in gear.  Now.

 

More information

If you want to read more about the report, I highly recommend the official FAQ.  It’s remarkably clear, to the point, and easy to read.

Skeptical Science has a short and totally brilliant post summarizing the takeaways from the IPCC report.

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