COP 27
Sixth sense: tuning into the science of climate risk
Jim Skea, professor of sustainable energy at Imperial College London, presented the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment cycle to delegates at The Geneva Association’s Climate Change & Environment Conference.
“We are emphasising the importance of immediate action.”
Jim Skea, Imperial College London
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is producing its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), with contributions from its three Working Groups, and a Synthesis Report, three Special Reports, and a refinement to its latest Methodology Report.
Working Group I’s contribution to the AR6, “Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis” was released on August 9, 2021. Working Group II’s contribution, “Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability”, was released on February 28, 2022. Working Group III’s contribution, “Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change” was released on April 4, 2022.
The Synthesis Report will be the last of the AR6 products and is scheduled to be released in late 2022 or early 2023 to inform the 2023 Global Stocktake under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
I’m co-chair of Working Group III, which covers the mitigation of climate change, but I will try to convey some of the key messages from all of the three working groups.
Working Group I has made a very strong statement: “It is indisputable that human activities are causing climate change, making extreme climate events, heat waves, heavy rainfall, droughts more frequent and severe. We could observe climate change having an impact in every region of Earth and these changes can only increase with further warming, which is inevitable.”
Working Group II shows that these levels of warming are a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet and that the next few years offer a rapidly closing window to realise a sustainable, liveable future for all.
Working Group III states that, if we carry on with the current policies that we have in place, then emissions will be higher in 2030 than they are today. In order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, which is the aspiration of the Paris Agreement, emissions would need to fall by 43 percent by 2030. The upper end of the Paris Agreement range, likely to limit warming to 2 degrees, requires emission reductions of about 27 percent.
The pledges that we have at the moment, the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), lead to only a very small reduction by 2030. That would place 1.5 degree warming beyond reach. It would still be possible to limit likely warming to 2 degrees, but only if we accelerate our emission reductions after 2030. It is quite noticeable that the rate of reduction in a “delayed action” scenario, where we stick to the current NDCs by 2030, means the emission reductions year on year are actually higher than they are in the 1.5 degrees scenario.
And so, we are emphasising the importance of immediate action if we’re going to avoid some of the challenges, both in terms of feasibility and cost, for reaching our emissions targets.
“Renewables can compete with fossil fuels on a level playing field in many parts of the world.”
Priorities needed
Working Group II says we need political commitment and follow-through at all levels of government. For adaptation, institutional frameworks are particularly important: we need clear goals, we need priorities, and we need defined responsibilities. We need to spread the knowledge of potential climate change impacts and the risks associated with these impacts. In order to improve our responses, we need to expand that knowledge and spread it throughout society. Benchmarking, monitoring and evaluation of adaptation measures are essential to track progress. You cannot do that monitoring and evaluation unless you’ve got set plans against which you can measure yourself. Climate impacts are going to affect all kinds of populations around the world, so inclusive governance that prioritises equity and justice are going to be extremely important to get buy-in for the kind of changes that may be necessary.
Turning to the mitigation side of the question, our report in Working Group III covers all sorts of systems: energy, agriculture and land use, transport, cities, etc, but I’ll just focus on the energy system. The very clear message that echoes previous reports is that we need, not just transitions but transformations, to limit global warming to the kind of levels implied in the Paris Agreement. It means big reductions in fossil fuel use, especially if it is unabated, and a step-up in carbon capture and storage systems will be extremely important to put us on the right target. We need to move to low or no carbon energy systems, and it is very clear that the kind of reductions we’ve seen in renewable energy costs over the last five to 10 years are indicating where the possibilities are, because renewables can compete with fossil fuels on a level playing field in many parts of the world at this point.
Electrification of final energy demand, including in the transport sector and for heating our buildings, will be extremely important to take advantage of low or zero carbon electricity. And obviously improved energy efficiency, which is really a win on all counts—it reduces costs for consumers, it reduces emissions, and you can create new jobs at the same time, by investing in more efficient homes. And finally, electricity won’t do absolutely everything, so there are technological solutions associated with other kinds of energy carriers—hydrogen and sustainable biofuels, for example.
It’s not all about technology and our report addressed the question of the people side of climate change mitigation. This made a very clear point that it is possible to satisfy people’s needs for nutrition, shelter and mobility, while bringing global emissions down by 40 to 70 percent, through demand-side measures. Walking and cycling, electrified transport, reduced air travel, adapting houses, diets and food systems, are all addressed in the report. There’s a very clear message that lifestyle changes are going to require systemic changes across society. People won’t do it by themselves; they will only do it if they are supported by the availability of infrastructure and the availability of technology that allow them to make these changes. Human behaviour and technology are indivisible and need to be considered together. We are well aware of the fact that wellbeing can only be promoted by giving people additional access to housing, energy and resources, but it is very clear that this does not need to compromise efforts to reach long-term climate targets.
“Progress on the finance side is going to be one of the critical factors.”
Finance enables
A point I need to make very strongly is the absolute importance of finance as an enabling condition for the kind of changes that we need. We actually wanted to put this very striking diagram, showing the difference between current investment flows and those investment flows that would be needed by 2030, into our summary for policymakers (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Yearly mitigation investment flows*
* $2015 per year
Source: page 142, Technical Summary, IPCC AR6 WG III
Unfortunately, it fell apart because countries disagreed as to whether we could refer to “developed” and “developing” countries, or not, but fortunately, it is still there in our technical summary. Figure 1 shows that yearly mitigation investment flows fall short of investment needs across all sectors and types of economy, particularly in developing countries.
The big message from that is that investment flows fall short of the levels needed in order to pursue the objectives of the Paris Agreement, round both emissions reduction and reducing vulnerability. There are certainly still gaps in financial flows on the electricity side but because of the economics of renewable energy, in particular, financial flows are starting to move in the right direction. And although the gaps are big, they are not as big as in other areas, for example, energy efficiency and transport. And we would particularly emphasise that, in agriculture, forestry and other land use there is a very big gap in terms of the multiples needed for scaling up. The second message there is that the gaps are far bigger in developing countries than they are in developed countries. Getting flows to the more vulnerable parts of the world will be absolutely critical.
The Working Group III report focuses on mitigation investments, but there is another point I should emphasise, because of collaboration with our colleagues in Working Group II on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Even speaking as a Working Group III mitigation co-chair, I can flag that the gaps for adaptation funding are actually far larger than they are for mitigation. We can get markets in mitigation that can help to move financial flows, but it’s very difficult to see markets in adaptation, where the benefits are more often realised in a particular place. And I think that is a particular challenge that we face going forward.
The fact that we have not seen much movement in the NDCs in the run up to COP27, gives a very clear message that the time for action is now. Urgency is there for adaptation because it looks as though we will be going to higher levels of warming, but it’s also there for mitigation because, regardless of whether we limit warming to 1.5 degrees or not, it is essential that we step up mitigation efforts to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
COP27 has been characterised as an “implementation COP”—actually putting in place the aspirations that came from the Glasgow Climate Pact. Regarding the NDCs on the mitigation side, we have not seen much progress since COP26. We could cross our fingers and hope that people have come up with more but, personally, I’m sceptical that that’s going to happen at this stage. That brings into firm focus the very difficult conversations that are going to take place about ‘loss and damage’; meaning, what happens with adapting to climate change and what compensation there will be for the residual risks when limits to adaptation have been reached. The enabling factor to make it all happen is money—that makes the world go round and will keep the world spinning.
It’s important to remember that there were three goals in the Paris Agreement—one was around mitigation and getting emissions down; one was around enhancing resilience to climate change; and the third was about making the money flow in order to allow these other objectives to be met. Progress on the finance side is going to be one of the critical factors. Political will is another one. I wouldn’t expect individual sectors to be singled out because a COP is a mixture of a negotiation, a trade fair, a scientific congress and a demonstration from civil society. It’s all of these things at once and I do think it’s incredibly important that all sectors, especially the financial sector, engage with the negotiations and all the peripheral discussions.
Image Credit; Shutterstock.com / Stu Shaw
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