The IPCC is back this week — not to drill further down into the direness of
our collective
situation
due to the climate crisis, but to highlight that all is not in fact lost: While,
without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, limiting
global warming to 1.5°C is still undeniably beyond reach, there is increasing
evidence of effective climate action.
The Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC Working Group III report, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
was approved today by 195 member governments of the IPCC. It is the third
instalment of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), which will be completed
this year.
The bad news
The report confirms that existing and planned fossil fuel projects are more than
the climate can handle, confirming that without sharp reductions in greenhouse
gas (GHG) emissions and fossil fuel use, we are, as Antonio Guterres
says,
“on a fast track to climate disaster.” The report also warns investors of
stranded fossil fuel assets that will amount to $4 trillion in a world where
warming is limited to 2°C, and even more in a world where it is limited to
1.5°C.
As we know, limiting global warming will require major transitions in the energy
sector — including a substantial reduction in fossil fuel use, widespread
electrification, improved energy efficiency and scaling of alternative
fuels.
Among the hopeful findings of the latest report: Since 2010, there have been
sustained decreases of up to 85 percent in the costs of solar and wind energy,
and batteries. An increasing range of policies and laws have enhanced energy
efficiency, reduced rates of deforestation and accelerated the deployment of
renewable energy.
“We are at a crossroads. The decisions we make now can secure a livable future.
We have the tools and
know-how
required to limit warming,” said IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee. “I am encouraged by
climate action being taken in many countries. There are policies, regulations
and market instruments that are proving effective. If these are scaled up and
applied more widely and equitably, they can support deep emissions reductions
and stimulate innovation.”
The good news
“Having the right policies, infrastructure and technology in place to enable
changes to our lifestyles and behavior can result in a 40-70 percent reduction
in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This offers significant untapped
potential,” said IPCC Working Group III Co-Chair Priyadarshi Shukla. “The
evidence also shows that these lifestyle changes can improve our health and
wellbeing.”
The report outlines ways in which every actor can play its part. For example:
-
Cities and other urban areas offer significant opportunities for
emissions reductions — through, for example, lower energy consumption (such
as by creating walkable cities and improving/electrifying public
transport),
and enhanced carbon uptake and storage using
nature.
Increasing networks of parks and open spaces, wetlands and urban agriculture
can reduce flood risk and reduce heat-island effects. Electrification with
renewables and shifts in public transport can enhance health, employment,
and equity.
-
Industry — which accounts for about a quarter of global emissions — can
reduce emissions by using materials more efficiently, reusing and recycling
products, and minimizing waste. For basic materials — including steel,
building materials and chemicals — low- to zero-emission and circular
production
processes
are at their pilot to near-commercial stage. Mitigation in industry can
reduce environmental impacts and increase employment and business
opportunities.
-
Agriculture, forestry, and other land use can provide large-scale
emissions reductions and remove and store carbon dioxide at
scale.
However, even an immediate, global adoption of regenerative farming
practices
— which would necessarily benefit biodiversity; help us adapt to climate
change;
and secure livelihoods, food and water, and wood supplies — could not
compensate for delayed emissions reductions in other sectors.
The next few years are critical
In the scenarios assessed, limiting warming to around 1.5°C (2.7°F) requires
global GHG emissions to peak before 2025 at the latest, and be reduced by 43
percent by 2030; at the same time, methane would also need to be reduced by
about a third. Even if we do this, it is almost inevitable that we will
temporarily exceed this temperature threshold; but we could return to below it
by the end of the century.
The global temperature will stabilize when CO2 emissions reach net zero. For
1.5°C (2.7°F), this means achieving net-zero CO2 emissions globally in the
early
2050s;
for 2°C (3.6°F), it is in the early 2070s.
This assessment shows that limiting warming to around 2°C (3.6°F) still requires
global greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025 at the latest, and be
reduced by a quarter by 2030.
Climate finance groups call on banks to stop finally funding fossil fuels
The new IPCC report comes as investors prepare to vote on a slate of
shareholder
resolutions
at the annual general meetings (AGMs) of the six largest US banks and several
major US insurance companies. The resolutions call for financial companies to
stop all financing activities for new fossil fuel expansion. Ahead of the AGMs,
Stop the Money Pipeline — a coalition of over 200 organizations — has
launched a campaign to
encourage investors to vote yes on the resolutions. Stop the Money Pipeline is
also pushing banks and insurance companies to pass policies that would prohibit
lending, underwriting and insuring to corporations engaged in fossil fuel
expansion.
As Brett Fleishman, Director of Finance Campaigns at
350.org, asserts: “The IPCC report on climate change
mitigation made two important points regarding climate change and fossil fuel
finance. The first is that finance flows for fossil fuels are still greater than
those for climate adaptation and mitigation. And the second is that meeting the
US government’s climate goals of limiting global warming to 2⁰C or below will
leave a substantial amount of fossil fuels unburned — up to $4 trillion in
stranded assets. We need our government and financial regulators to wake up to
this contradiction.”
Awareness of the critical link between the finance world and potential for a
climate-resilient future continues to grow. More and more consumers are
ditching banks that finance fossil
fuels;
and asset managers such as BlackRock and Vanguard are being called out
for hedging their bets on fossil
fuels
and their outright lack of climate
action,
respectively. Banking giants such as HSBC are making definitive commitments
to end coal
financing;
but many major players continue to slow progress behind the scenes.
In the five years after the Paris Agreement was adopted, six US banks
(JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America,
Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs) provided nearly $500 billion in
lending and underwriting to the 100
corporations most aggressively expanding fossil fuel operations; Chase,
Citigroup, Wells Fargo and BofA are the world’s four largest providers of
lending and underwriting to those same 100 companies. US-based insurance giants
AIG, Travelers, Liberty Mutual and Chubb are among the top 10
insurance
providers
to the oil and gas industry, globally.
“Today’s IPCC report once again makes clear what science has been telling us for
years: For a shot at a liveable future, we must get off fossil fuels as fast as
possible,” says Jamal Raad, executive director of Evergreen Action — a
member of the Stop the Money Pipeline coalition. “Scientists and experts
across the board have already outlined what must be done to defend our most
vulnerable communities, protect our collective livable future, and mitigate the
worst effects of climate change. We must act now — not in six months, not after
an election year; now.”
Meanwhile ... the Securities and Exchange Commission is receiving comments on
its proposed climate risk
disclosure rules
that will require companies to disclose their climate-related risks and
emissions.
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Sustainable Brands Staff
Published Apr 4, 2022 11am EDT / 8am PDT / 4pm BST / 5pm CEST