The Latest IPCC Report Will Make You Sad. And Mad. Don’t Give Up!
On Monday, March 20, the IPCC will release a report summarizing the latest climate science, the culmination of its sixth assessment cycle. With global heat-trapping emissions still rising and millions of people around the world still reeling from last year’s deadly and costly climate-related disasters, this report offers a summary of everything scientists are attesting, a collective howl for action, albeit delivered in precise technical terms. Please do not be deaf to the implications of this report; please do not give in to darkness and doom either. This report is important because it reflects our reality and helps create a blueprint for emergencies Action.
The conclusions we are likely to see in the forthcoming report already emerge from the three working group reports that the IPCC has published over the past two years in this sixth cycle of assessments and previous special reports. Here’s the bottom line: Due to decades of politically motivated inaction on the part of policymakers, particularly in richer countries, and the greed of fossil fuel companies keen to snatch the last remaining profit, scientific projections show that we are currently on a are on the way to exceeding 1.5˚C of global mean temperature rising above pre-industrial levels within the next 10 to 15 years.
It’s heartbreaking and annoying to have to sit with this harsh reality.
Even at around 1.1°C now, we are already in a dangerous and deeply unjust climate crisis. Which only reinforces with greater urgency what we (still) need to do to address climate change: phase out fossil fuels drastically and rapidly while we transition to clean energy, greatly reduce heat-trapping emissions, and quickly build resilience to the worsening climate impacts . To do this in an equitable way, richer countries must meet their responsibility to provide finance to low-income countries to meet climate goals.
It is also clear that this is a challenge that goes far beyond CO2 emissions – it is deeply rooted in an unjust fossil fuel energy and economic system. To solve it, we must combine our best and most innovative clean technologies with transformative changes in our socioeconomic and political systems that will help create a healthier, safer and more just world for all.
Who is responsible for climate change?
The IPCC is aware of the varying contributions of different regions to the heat-trapping emissions that fuel climate change, with richer nations contributing most to the problem (see figure below from IPCC Working Group III report). For us here in the United States, knowing that the US is the largest historical emitter of CO2 emissions, which account for about a quarter of these emissions, our responsibility to act boldly is clear.
Globally, it is the rich who are responsible for most of the emissions. According to IPCC: Globally, the 10% of households with the highest per capita emissions contribute 34-45% to global consumption-based household GHG emissions, while the middle 40% contribute 40-53% and the bottom 50% 13-15%. (high confidence)
Who bears the consequences of climate change?
We all experience climate impacts; but low-income nations, communities with the least resources, and the most marginalized people bear the brunt of these impacts (and often the worst fossil fuel pollution as well). The African continent is among the most climate-prone places, as shown in the IPCC figure below from the Working Group II report.
The IPCC findings make it clear that climate change is significantly increasing the likelihood of many types of man-made, fossil fuel-related disasters. For example, the WGII report states:
- Climate change has caused significant damage and increasingly irreversible losses to terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems in the open ocean (high confidence).
- Climate change has negatively impacted the physical health of people worldwide (very high confidence) and the mental health of people in the regions assessed (very high confidence).
- Climate change contributes to humanitarian crises where high vulnerability climate hazards interact (high confidence). Climate and weather extremes are increasingly leading to refugee movements in all regions (high confidence), with small island states being disproportionately affected (high confidence). Acute food insecurity and malnutrition associated with floods and droughts have increased in Africa (high confidence) and Central and South America (high confidence).
And our lived experiences confirm the science.
Perhaps you live in a community that has been hit by floods, droughts, or wildfires. Perhaps a frighteningly intense hurricane has traumatized your neighborhood. Or a heat wave that claimed hundreds of lives. As we look around the world, we see people in Pakistan still struggling with the aftermath of the devastating floods they experienced last year. And 129,000 people in the Horn of Africa “are starving and literally staring at death” from food insecurity triggered by a prolonged drought and missed rainy seasons.
Perhaps you derive your livelihood or sense of cultural heritage and belonging from nature and have seen directly the effects of climate disruption throughout the natural world. Changes in long-standing seasonal patterns affecting growing seasons and the life cycles of birds and insects. Coral bleaching or the leading edges of a die-off of the mighty Amazon forests or the loss of valuable species. Perhaps it was the new research showing irreversible thinning of Arctic ice that embarrassed you.
We are already in a world of hurting, ever-worsening and in some cases irreversible changes that will profoundly affect the lives of generations to come. This is why the problem of richer nations providing climate finance to support clean energy transitions and climate resilience, as well as address losses and damage in low-income countries, is so pressing.
We have solutions – but they require transformative change
The IPCC recognizes that deep cuts in heat-trapping emissions are essential to meet climate targets.
All global modeled pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C (>50%) with no or limited overshoot and those that limit warming to 2°C (>67%) include fast and deep and in the most cases immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions across all industries. Further: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the energy sector requires major shifts, including significant reductions in overall fossil fuel consumption, use of low-emission energy sources, switching to alternative energy sources, and energy efficiency and conservation. Continued installation of unabated fossil fuel infrastructure will “lock” GHG emissions. (high confidence)
The IPCC also underscores the need to think holistically and comprehensively about solutions. Their Working Group II report states: This report recognizes the value of different forms of knowledge, such as scientific as well as indigenous and local knowledge, in understanding and evaluating climate adaptation processes and measures to reduce the risks of human-caused climate change. AR6 highlights accommodation solutions that are effective, workable and consistent with the principles of equity.
If solving the climate crisis is important to you, please don’t settle for being blindsided by the latest advances in solar panels or electric cars (it’s okay to be blinded – that’s me! Just don’t stop). Please also consider the system in which this solar panel or car will exist and the need to transform our current inadequate and unjust systems. We need a more modern, climate-resilient power grid that can help integrate more and more renewable energy. All communities – not just the rich – should have access to clean energy and be able to breathe free from fossil fuel pollution. And, as the IPCC shows, we may close the global energy poverty gap while reducing emissions if we invest at the scale needed.
But the necessary transition to clean energy is being hampered by fossil fuel companies and fossil energy geopolitics. To solve the climate crisis, we must also break the power of fossil fuel companies, who are making obscene profits and pushing for ever-greater expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure, despite clear scientific evidence that doing so contradicts our climate goals. The recent Biden administration approval for ConocoPhillips’ Willow oil drilling project is just the latest egregious example.
The IPCC report may make you sad and angry – please act too!
For many of us who devote our lives to flattery, urging, urging, challenging that policymakers are heeding the science and protecting the people, the latest IPCC findings can cause deep sadness and burning anger. Because we know that our policymakers are failing us right now, despite having known for so long what they needed to do to advance the many readily available solutions. Worse still, they continue to pander to fossil fuel companies bent on burning the planet so they can make a few more billions in profits. We are all at risk of losing a necessary, science-based and cherished goal of keeping the rise in global temperatures below 1.5°C, which will have devastating consequences for so many – and we know exactly where the blame lies.
Please take the pain, this burning anger, and channel it to address this systemic causes the climate crisis. Please also remember to take care of yourself and those around you, find your community of support and joy and healing. We are in the fight of our lives, it will be a long fight and victory is not guaranteed. But we know what the work is and we are the people who have to do it now.