The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) usually does not lay out policy prescriptions. But the third part of its Sixth Assessment Report, released on Monday, is the closest that the consortium of climate experts has come to a comprehensive set of guidelines for global warming mitigation. The de-carbonisation pathway it suggests hinges on a shift from fossil fuels to cleaner sources of energy. The good news, the report points out, is that “there is growing evidence of climate action” in the energy sector. In the last decade, policies and regulatory measures in several parts of the world have enhanced the efficiency of green technologies. The cost of producing solar and wind energy, for instance, has come down by almost 85 per cent since 2010. The bad news, however, is that these efforts may not be enough to escape the ravages of a climate breakdown. Most projections, including the first part of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report released last year, show that the world is not on course to limit the temperature rise to the levels set in the Paris Climate Pact.
The Paris Agreement proposed to keep the increase in global average temperature to “well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels” and intensify efforts to keep this threshold to 1.5 degrees Celsius. However, the Nationally Determined Contributions to reduce emissions, the core of the landmark pact, have been criticised as inadequate. Attempts by countries in the West to course-correct by setting ambitious decarbonisation targets for the middle of this century have been criticised as a ruse to postpone immediate action. The IPCC’s latest findings add weight to these criticisms. “Limiting warming to around 1.5 degrees Celsius requires global GHGs to peak before 2025 at the latest, and be reduced by 43 per cent by 2030,” it says.
The second part of the Sixth Assessment Report, released in February, was notable for its stress on climate justice. The authors of the report’s latest edition affirm that “equitable action in mitigating… climate change impacts is critical to sustainable development”. The thrust on equity vindicates the position of developing countries like India which have maintained that decisive climate action requires developed nations to be more forthcoming with technology transfers and less stingy with funds. It’s increasingly becoming clear that developing countries, whose economy remains dependent on fossil fuels, will require untried technologies like carbon capture and storage to balance their growth-related imperatives with climate concerns. The message of the IPCC report is clear: Without a paradigm shift in climate cooperation, it will be very difficult to blunt global warming.
This editorial first appeared in the print edition on April 6, 2022 under the title ‘No time to lose’.
