The United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued its sixth in a series of reports which assess scientific, technical, and socio-economic information concerning climate change. The IPCC Sixth Assessment report was published on 20 March 2023 and it makes for harrowing reading.
The 6th Assessment indicates that climate changes will increase in all regions of the globe over the coming decades and that even with 1.5°C of global warming, there will be increasing heat waves, longer warm seasons, and shorter cold seasons. Should governments and businesses fail to act, these effects which will become far more intense at 2ºC of warming.
The organisation Ashden has praised the IPCC’s “no-holds-barred” warning and the associated urgent climate action call. Ashden’s work focuses on sustainable towns and cities working with local authorities, retrofit agencies and others to turn climate ambition into climate action.
Fiona Duggan, Policy Lead at climate solutions charity Ashden explains to Digital Journal: “The report made crystal clear that we need to be fighting climate breakdown on all fronts, in all countries, at rapid speed – it was a no-holds barred message of warning and hope.”
While there is much to be done, Duggan is pleased that the report is sufficiently forthright: “We were delighted to see such strong emphasis on the urgent need for policy action and government and financial support to vulnerable communities that are already suffering from climate impacts.”
In terms of the consequences, she explains: “The report authors’ strongest yet warning that we can no longer put off decisions about how to decarbonise because consequences to food and water supply and nature are urgent and dire, was a message that must be shouted from the rooftops by all in their wake.”
In terms of prioritises, Duggan notes: “The report gave huge emphasis to the co-benefits of rapid decarbonisation throughout – that reducing climate emissions will have huge co-benefits on health, economies, communities and the natural environment.”
Decarbonisation is about reducing carbon dioxide emissions resulting from human activity, with eventual goal of eliminating them.
One path towards decarbonisation is through a reduction in energy use. As Duggan observes: “The IPCC writers pointed out lowering demand through energy efficiency in building could reduce emissions by 66 percent by 2030.”
While high-income nations have the resources available, elsewhere in the world the challenges are greater. For instance, Duggan thinks: “In the global South it means supporting renewable energy take-up that will allow countries to leapfrog the carbon intensive infrastructure that have done so much damage to the world into clean, renewable, cheaper energy, accessible to the poor and the rich.”
To do so requires support and technology, and here Duggan closes with: “As the IPCC pointed out – what is crucial is that investors, banks and governments get behind them – immediately and at scale.”
