Report says human actions are causing dangerous disruption, and window to secure a liveable future is closing
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Wildfires tearing through a forest in the Chefchaouen
region of northern Morocco. Photograph: Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty Images
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Summary
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Even at current levels, human actions in heating the climate are causing dangerous and widespread disruption, threatening devastation to swathes of the natural world and rendering many areas unliveable, according to the landmark report published on Monday.
“The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, a co-chair of working group 2 of the IPCC.
“Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.”
Droughts, floods, heatwaves
In what some scientists termed “the bleakest warning yet”, the summary report from the global authority on climate science says droughts, floods, heatwaves and other extreme weather are accelerating and wreaking increasing damage.
Allowing global temperatures to increase by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, as looks likely on current trends in greenhouse gas emissions, would result in some “irreversible” impacts.
These include the melting of ice caps and glaciers, and a cascading effect whereby wildfires, the die-off of trees, the drying of peatlands and the thawing of permafrost release additional carbon emissions, amplifying the warming further.
‘Atlas of human suffering’
António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said: “I have seen many scientific reports in my time, but nothing like this. Today’s IPCC report is an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.”
John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, said the report “paints a dire picture of the impacts already occurring because of a warmer world and the terrible risks to our planet if we continue to ignore science.
"We have seen the increase in climate-fuelled extreme events, and the damage that is left behind – lives lost and livelihoods ruined. The question at this point is not whether we can altogether avoid the crisis – it is whether we can avoid the worst consequences.”
Chance to avoid the worst
This is the second part of the IPCC’s latest assessment report, an updated, comprehensive review of global knowledge of the climate, which has been seven years in the making and draws on the peer-reviewed work of thousands of scientists.
The assessment report is the sixth since the IPCC was first convened by the UN in 1988, and may be the last to be published while there is still some chance of avoiding the worst.
A first instalment, by the IPCC’s working group 1, published last August, on the physical science of climate change, said the climate crisis was “unequivocally” caused by human actions, resulting in changes that were “unprecedented”, with some becoming “irreversible”.
This second part, by working group 2, deals with the impacts of climate breakdown, sets out areas where the world is most vulnerable, and details how we can try to adapt and protect against some of the impacts.
A third section, due in April, will cover ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and the final part, in October, will summarise these lessons for governments meeting in Egypt for the UN Cop27 climate summit.
‘Cataclysmic’ for small islands
Small islands will be among those worst affected. Walton Webson, an ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda and the chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, called the findings “cataclysmic”.
He urged the UN to convene a special session to consider action. “We are continuing to head for a precipice – we say our eyes are open to the risks, but when you look at global emissions, if anything we are accelerating towards the cliff edge.
"We are not seeing the action from the big emitters that is required to get emissions down in this critical decade – this means halving emissions by 2030 at the latest. It is clear that time is slipping away from us.”
Governments in other parts of the world could help their people to adapt to some of the impacts of the climate crisis, the report says, by building flood defences, helping farmers to grow different crops, or building more resilient infrastructure.
But the authors say the capacity of the world to adapt to the impacts will diminish rapidly the further temperatures rise, quickly reaching “hard” limits beyond which adaptation would be impossible.
‘Global dominoes’
The climate crisis also has the power to worsen problems such as hunger, ill-health and poverty, the report makes clear.
Dave Reay, the director of Edinburgh Climate Change Institute at the University of Edinburgh, said: “Like taking a wrecking ball to a set of global dominoes, climate change in the 21st century threatens to destroy the foundations of food and water security, smash onwards through the fragile structures of human and ecosystem health, and ultimately shake the very pillars of human civilisation.”
But Jeffrey Kargel, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in the US, said: “The current warfare activity in eastern Europe, though not attributable to climate change, is a further caution about how human tensions and international relations and geopolitics could become inflamed as climate change impacts hit nations in ways that they are ill-prepared to handle.”
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This climate crisis report asks:
what is at stake? In short,
everything
Damian Carrington
Environment editor
Major IPCC report, approved by 195 countries,
lays bare devastating harm caused by unchecked global heating
lays bare devastating harm caused by unchecked global heating
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Africa faces severe drought and famine unless
global heating is kept to no more than 1.5C. Photograph: World Food Programme/Reuters |
It is the very last words of the new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that spell out what is at stake. In short, it is everything.
The damage from global heating is already hitting hard. The comprehensive IPCC assessment, which is based on 34,000 studies, documents “widespread and pervasive” impacts on people and the natural world from increasingly frequent and intense heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, storms and floods. Some impacts are now irreversible.
Heat is killing more people, drought is killing more trees and warming oceans are killing more coral reefs, the nurseries of the oceans. But without action, worse is coming, the report said, and faster than scientists had thought.
The new report analyses the impacts of the climate crisis and how humanity can adapt, in addition to slashing emissions. The good news is that a liveable future remains within grasp – just.
But the window of opportunity for action is “brief and rapidly closing”. The response from UN secretary-general António Guterres was stark: “Delay is death.”
But tackling climate impacts alone will not work. The IPCC sets out in the strongest terms to date that the climate crisis is inseparable from the biodiversity crisis and the poverty and inequality suffered by billions of people.
Given this scope, and with a liveable future on the line, the assessment could be seen as one of the most important in human history. It was produced by more than 1,000 physical and social scientists and unanimously approved by the governments of 195 nations.
“I have seen many scientific reports in my time, but nothing like this,” said Guterres. Laurence Tubiana, at the European Climate Foundation and one of the architects of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, said the report was “brutal” and “there can be no more excuses” for inaction.
Already, 3.5 billion people are highly vulnerable to climate impacts and half the world’s population suffers severe water shortages at some point each year, the report said. One in three people are exposed to deadly heat stress, and this is projected to increase to 50% to 75% by the end of the century.
Half a million more people are at risk of serious flooding every year, and a billion living on coasts will be exposed by 2050, the report said. Rising temperatures and rainfall are increasing the spread of diseases in people, such as dengue fever, and in crops, livestock and wildlife.
Even if the world keeps heating below 1.6C by 2100 – and we are already at 1.1C – then 8% of today’s farmland will become climatically unsuitable, just after the global population has peaked above 9 billion.
Severe stunting could affect 1 million children in Africa alone. If global heating continues and little adaptation is put in place, 183 million more people are projected to go hungry by 2050.
The ability to produce food relies on the water, soils and pollination provided by a healthy natural world, and the report said protection of wild places and wildlife is fundamental to coping with the climate crisis.
But animals and plants are being exposed to climatic conditions not experienced for tens of thousands of years. Half of the studied species have already been forced to move and many face extinction.
Maintaining the resilience of nature at a global scale depends on the conservation of 30% to 50% of Earth’s land, freshwater and oceans, the IPCC report said. Today, less than 15% of land, 21% of freshwater and 8% of oceans are protected areas, and some regions, like the Amazon, have switched from storing carbon to emitting it.
The IPCC report is also crystal clear that adapting to the climate crisis is as much a social problem as a scientific one. The best way to give effective and lasting protection from climate chaos is through action that addresses “inequities such as those based on gender, ethnicity, disability, age, location and income”.
“Targeting a climate resilient, sustainable world involves fundamental changes to how society functions, including changes to underlying values, world-views, ideologies, social structures, political and economic systems, and power relationships,” the report’s authors said in an accompanying document.
“This may feel overwhelming at first, but the world is changing anyway – climate-resilient development offers us ways to drive change to improve wellbeing for all.”
The report warned that climate “losses and damages” are “strongly concentrated among the poorest vulnerable populations”, who have done least to cause the problem.
That is a significant phrase, echoing the “loss and damage” for which low-income nations are demanding compensation from rich nations, and which will be a key issue at the next UN climate summit in Egypt in November.
Madeleine Diouf Sarr, the chair of the Least Developed Countries at the UN climate talks, said: “I read this report with a great deal of fear and sadness, but not surprise. It’s very clear to us that no amount of adaptation can compensate for failing to limit warming to 1.5C.”
However, the regional analysis in the IPCC report demonstrates that the climate crisis affects everyone. In North America, it warns of increasing deaths and physical and mental illness due to greater extreme weather, from storms to wildfires. In Europe, “substantive agricultural production losses are projected for most areas over the 21st century”.
Australia faces “increases in heat-related mortality and morbidity for people and wildlife”, while “destruction” lies in wait for small island settlements.
In central and south America, “severe health effects due to increasing epidemics” are anticipated, particularly from diseases spread by insects and other animals.
Among the most populous continents, one of Asia’s greatest risks is flooding, and Africa is haunted by hunger as climate impacts hit farmers.
The IPCC message that hope remains is measured: “Near-term actions that limit global warming to close to 1.5°C would substantially reduce projected losses and damages related to climate change in human systems and ecosystems, but cannot eliminate them all.” Some low-lying areas appear doomed already.
The report also noted that “losses and damages escalate with every increment of global warming”, meaning every action to cut emissions or adapt matters. Adaptation is heavily underfunded, the IPCC said, but investment now is far cheaper than acting later.
Among the adaptation measures the IPCC cites are restoring wetlands to protect against flooding, greening the world’s fast-growing cities to cool them, and using trees to shade crops and livestock.
The IPCC scientists said the end of the century is less than a lifetime away, with a child born today being 78 years old in 2100: “Actions taken now will have a profound effect on the quality of our children’s lives.”
The future is in the decisions we make today, said Christiana Figueres, former UN climate chief and now at the Global Optimism group: “We can prevent and protect ourselves from extreme weather, famines, health problems and more by cutting emissions and investing in adaptation strategies.
"The science and the solutions are clear. It’s up to us how we shape the future.”
Links
- IPCC Sixth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2022
- Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
What is the IPCC climate change report – and what does it say? - What is the IPCC and why is its new climate report different from others?
- Five takeaways from the UN’s 2022 climate impacts report
- Climate change: a threat to human wellbeing and health of the planet. Taking action now can secure our future
- IPCC Press Conference - Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation & Vulnerability (video)
