Press Release
IPCC opens meeting to approve the report focusing on mitigation of climate change
SURREY (UK), March 21 –The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has opened today a virtual meeting considering the Working …
Accelerate Climate Action Now
Excellency Madam President Lachezara Stoeva,
Excellency Secretary General Antonio Guterres,
Excellency President of the General Assembly Csaba Korosi,
Excellencies, Ladies, and gentlemen,
Limiting climate change is critical to sustainable development.
Not just for SDG 13 — combating climate change and its impacts – but for many of the SDGs.
The IPCC’s latest reports indicate that mitigation and adaptation have more synergies than trade-offs with SDGs.
In other words limiting climate change will facilitate achievement of many other SDGs.
Climate change is a threat multiplier.
Climate hazards and non-climate threats interact to aggravate the adverse impacts.
These complex threats are occurring now with the warming of 1.1˚C and will get worse with additional warming.
It’s not surprising then to see that the mid-term scores for SDGs signal that they are in deep trouble.
Only 12% of the 140 targets are on track.
Progress is severely inadequate for about half of the goals including Goal 13.
Climate change has exposed about half the world population to acute food insecurity and reduced water security, with the largest adverse impacts in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, LDCs, small island states, and the Arctic.
Climate change has slowed the growth in agricultural productivity globally over the past 50 years.
Heat waves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones have increased their frequency and intensity in all regions.
Many recent extreme weather events would not have occurred in the absence of global warming.
Loss of human life from floods, droughts and storms in highly vulnerable regions, ie., developing countries, was 15 times higher, compared to regions with very low vulnerability.
Climate extremes are increasingly driving displacement in many regions.
Global warming attacks human health.
It has increased the geographic dispersion of food-borne, water-borne, and vector-borne diseases.
Adaptation efforts have increased in all sectors and regions over the past decade.
But adaptation efforts lag and gaps will widen at the current implementation trend.
Many ecosystems have a limited capacity to adapt and further warming will cause some tropical, coastal, polar and mountain ecosystems to reach hard adaptation limits.
Further damage to ecosystems will lead to losses in their intrinsic value and disruption in the provision of services to benefit life on earth.
Additional warming will increase the risks of species extinction and irreversible loss of biodiversity in ecosystems.
Further warming will increase the likelihood of irreversible changes in the climate system, which includes changes triggered when tipping points are reached.
At warming levels between 2˚C and 3˚C, the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets will be lost almost completely and irreversibly over multiple millennia, causing several meters of sea level rise.
So, deep, rapid and sustained cuts to global GHG emissions is the best option for sustainable development.
To limit warming to 1.5˚C, the emissions of greenhouse gases should peak as soon as possible no later than 2025, and decline rapidly towards net zero emissions by 2050.
Yet global emissions continue to increase.
Sustainable energy and sustainable land use are key to limiting warming to 1.5˚C.
Approximately 79% of global GHG emissions came from production and use of energy in industry, transport, and buildings.
The rest (21%) came from agriculture, forestry, and other land uses.
Emissions vary substantially across countries.
Least developed countries and small island developing states have much lower per capita emissions (1.7 tCO2-eq and 4.6 tCO2-eq) than the global average of 6.9 tCO2-eq.
High emitters must make larger emission reductions for the world to get to net zero. 2050 is a global average for achieving net zero.
The Paris Agreement recognizes that developing countries’ GHG emissions will peak later than those of developed countries.
Developed countries have financial capital and technology to tackle climate change.
They promised to provide financial and technological support for developing countries climate action.
Now is the time to deliver that promise.
Global emissions in 2030 – seven years from now – should be 43 % lower than in 2019 to limit warming to 1.5˚C.
Countries’ current Nationally Determined Contribution pledges to limit GHG emissions are not sufficient to meet the 2030 target.
And current policies will not achieve the NDC targets – there is an implementation gap.
But we have the tools and know-how to tackle climate change.
At least 18 countries have sustained a decade of declining CO2 emissions and continuing economic growth.
This can be replicated in other regions, if finance and technologies are provided.
Global climate investment needs to increase three to six times from current levels.
Accelerated financial support for developing countries is critical to the achievement of the global net zero goal.
The good news is that there is sufficient global capital and liquidity to close investment gaps.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
It is clear that the path to net-zero emissions requires political commitment and coordinated policies nationally and globally.
It is hard to differentiate climate action from the achievement of the SDGs.
Both rely on international cooperation, effective ecosystem stewardship, inclusive governance, the sharing of diverse knowledge, and the sharing of benefits and burdens. In particular, global climate investment needs to increase three to six times from current levels.
Accelerated financial support for developing countries is critical to achievement of the global net zero goal.
There is sufficient global capital and liquidity to close global investment gaps.
We live in a diverse world in which everyone has different responsibilities and different opportunities to enact change.
Some can do a lot while others will need help.
Our collective future will be shaped by the choices we make — starting now.
We need to make the right choices.
I urge all parties to redouble their efforts to fulfill the Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Thank you.
29 Nov 22, Singapore
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Your Excellency Minister Balakrishnan, Director Pangestu, Ambassador Thomson, ladies and gentlemen,
First, I’d like to thank the organisers of this Summit for their kind invitation. As the Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – IPCC – I’m honoured to address this keynote panel at the Economist Impact’s 2nd annual World Ocean Summit Asia-Pacific in Singapore.
Oceans cover more than 70 per cent of Earth’s surface and they have been one of the dominant themes in IPCC reports throughout this cycle.
What happens with our oceans will profoundly and inevitably influence what happens to our planet and how livable it will be in the not-so-distant future.
It is clear that man-made climate change is a threat to the health of our planet and to the wellbeing of all species inhabiting it.
The scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change has caused substantial damages, and increasingly irreversible losses, in terrestrial, freshwater and coastal and open ocean marine ecosystems.
The extent and magnitude of climate change impacts are larger than estimated in previous assessments. Widespread deterioration of ecosystem structure and function, resilience and natural adaptive capacity, as well as shifts in seasonal timing have occurred due to climate change, with adverse socioeconomic consequences.
Continued and accelerating sea level rise will encroach on coastal settlements and infrastructure and commit low-lying coastal ecosystems to submergence and loss. If trends in urbanisation in exposed areas continue, this will exacerbate the impacts, with more challenges where energy, water and other services are constrained. The number of people at risk from climate change and the associated loss of biodiversity will progressively increase.
Hundreds of local losses of species have been driven by increases in the magnitude of heat extremes, as well as mass mortality events on land and in the ocean and the loss of kelp forests.
Some losses are already irreversible, such as the first species extinctions driven by climate change. Other impacts are approaching irreversibility, such as the impacts of hydrological changes resulting from the retreat of glaciers, or the changes in some mountain and Arctic ecosystems driven by permafrost thaw.
Near-term warming and increased frequency, severity and duration of extreme events will place many terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems at high or very high risks of biodiversity loss. Near-term risks for biodiversity loss are moderate to high in forest ecosystems, kelp and seagrass ecosystems, and high to very high in Arctic sea-ice and terrestrial ecosystems and warm-water coral reefs.
Climate change causes the redistribution of marine fish stocks, increasing risk of transboundary management conflicts among fisheries users, and negatively affecting equitable distribution of food provisioning services as fish stocks shift from lower to higher latitude regions, thereby increasing the need for climate-informed transboundary management and cooperation.
Marine heatwaves, including well-documented events along the west coast of North America (2013–2016) and the east coast of Australia (2015– 2016, 2016–2017 and 2020), drive abrupt shifts in community composition that may persist for years, with associated biodiversity loss, the collapse of regional fisheries and aquaculture and reduced capacity of habitat-forming species to protect shorelines.
Some habitat-forming coastal ecosystems, including many coral reefs, kelp forests and seagrass meadows, will undergo irreversible phase shifts due to marine heatwaves with global warming levels above 1.5°C and are at high risk this century.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Maintaining planetary health is essential for human and societal health and a pre-condition for climate-resilient development.
In light of observed and projected changes in the ocean and cryosphere, many nations will face challenges to adapt, even with ambitious mitigation. In a high emissions scenario, many ocean- and cryosphere-dependent communities are projected to face adaptation limits (e.g. biophysical, geographical, financial, technical, social, political and institutional) during the second half of the 21st century. Low emission pathways, for comparison, limit the risks from ocean and cryosphere changes in this century and beyond and enable more effective responses, whilst also creating co-benefits.
Profound economic and institutional transformative change will enable Climate Resilient Development Pathways in the ocean and cryosphere context.
Effective ecosystem conservation on approximately 30% to 50% of Earth’s land, freshwater and ocean areas, including all remaining areas with a high degree of naturalness and ecosystem integrity, will help protect biodiversity, build ecosystem resilience and ensure essential ecosystem services.
IPCC assessment of the ocean and cryosphere in a changing climate reveals the benefits of ambitious mitigation and effective adaptation for sustainable development and, conversely, the escalating costs and risks of delayed action. The potential to chart Climate Resilient Development Pathways varies within and among ocean, high mountain and polar land regions. Realising this potential depends on transformative change.
This highlights the urgency of prioritising timely, ambitious, coordinated and enduring action.
Thank you.
Sharm-El-Sheikh, Sunday 06 November 2022
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Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen,
As the Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – IPCC – I’m delighted and honoured to address you at the opening of COP27.
We are very grateful to the Egyptian government and the presidency of COP27 for hosting this crucial conference. We also want to extend our thanks to the people of Sharm-El-Sheikh for their warmest welcome and generous hospitality. Thank you.
The voice of today´s science on climate change could not be sharper, stronger, and more sobering: we are not on track today to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The time for our collective action is – now.
IPCC reports presented to the world in February and April this year clearly show that we have the technology and the know-how to tackle climate change.
But these options are limited by the availability of finance among others. Adaptation options are further limited by global warming levels. With increasing global warming, losses and damages will increase and additional human and natural systems will be pushed to adaptation limits. Therefore, the prerequisite to successful adaptation is ambitious mitigation to keep global warming within limits, particularly below 1.5°C – through immediate and deep cuts in the emissions of greenhouse gases.
Progress on the financial flows comparable to the goals of the Paris Agreement remains low.
Accelerated international financial cooperation is a critical enabler of low emission and just transition.
Adaptation gaps, especially in developing countries, are particularly driven by widening disparities between the costs of adaptation and financing available to adaptation.
We can achieve the greatest gains in well-being by prioritizing finance to reduce climate risks for low-income and marginalized communities.
Since the Paris Agreement, many countries have put in place climate laws, climate policies, and regulations. But their scope needs to be expanded, their ambition raised and implemented.
This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to save our planet and our livelihoods.
Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished delegates, this is an opportunity as well as an obligation.
The range of options and, most of all, the time available to them now will not be there for future leaders and policymakers.
Before closing, allow me to reassure you that the scientific community remains ready to work with you and support you in every step of the way in this journey to limit global warming and also of achieving sustainable development.
Humanity, our planet, and all species living on it deserve nothing less.
Thank you very much.
*****
Lisbon, 13 Oct 2022
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Your Excellency, President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa
Professor Antonio Feijó, President of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Dr. Angela Merkel, President of the Jury of the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
On behalf of scientists — past, present and future — working for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and as the Chair of the IPCC, let me start by saying that we are humbled and honoured to be one of the recipients of the 2022 Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity.
We are particularly grateful to the Jury led by Dr. Angela Merkel for recognising the work of the thousands of scientists worldwide who volunteer their expertise and time to work on IPCC reports.
Today, these reports are the most authoritative scientific voice of the United Nations about climate change. They provide the world´s policymakers with robust scientific knowledge about climate change and how to tackle it.
Thank you.
We also thank the Gulbenkian Foundation for your warm welcome and generous hospitality.
This important recognition of climate change science comes at a critical time. The science delivered to the world´s policymakers through our reports is clear and unequivocal. Climate change is man-made, it is widespread and rapid, and it is intensifying.
In 2007, the year the IPCC received the Nobel Peace Prize, the IPCC’s fourth assessment report noted, and I quote:
“Continued greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century that would very likely be larger than those observed during the 20th century” end quote.
It may be one of the 21st century’s greatest understatements. Fifteen years later the effects of climate change have arrived with a vengeance and no part of the world is being spared. And that’s with global warming of 1.1 degrees Celsius since the middle of the 19th century.
Global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C will be exceeded during this century unless immediate, rapid, and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions – which suffocate our planet – occur in the nearest future.
We should make no mistake – climate change is an imminent threat to the health of our planet, our livelihoods, our well-being, and all other species sharing this world with us. Its impacts exacerbate the problems in energy, water, food, and health of humans and ecosystems.
Today, we are not on track to limit warming to 1.5°C.
In fact, average annual greenhouse gas emissions in the last decade were the highest in human history.
The impacts and risks of climate change are becoming increasingly complex and more difficult to manage. Developing nations are particularly vulnerable.
Climate change is not happening somewhere else, to someone else. Parts of Europe recorded the hottest temperatures ever this summer. We´ve seen the stark images of wildfires in the US, France and Australia. Floods in Pakistan. The devastation Hurricane Ian inflicted on Cuba and the US, just to name a few recent extreme events filling our news feeds. Climate change made these events worse.
To put it in no uncertain terms – NOW is the time for climate action. There is no more time for half-measures or complacency.
We cannot embrace indifference or be discouraged by the scale of the challenge. We have the tools and know-how required to limit global warming. It is time to put them to use with far greater urgency.
Delays and inaction today will increase the uncertainty of limiting global warming and result in less time and fewer options for future decision-makers. Delay will lead to more permanent damage. It will mean higher costs to prevent and adapt to climate change. Delay is a losing proposition.
It is encouraging that more and more countries are taking action. But the world needs to dramatically ramp up its response to climate change. The window of opportunity is closing rapidly. Our failure to act collectively now will only multiply and increase our challenges in the future.
Our reports assess that current financial flows are three to six times below the levels needed by 2030 to limit warming to below 1.5°C or 2°C. The challenge is greatest for developing countries.
There is enough global capital and liquidity to tackle the problem. But financiers need more explicit signalling from governments and the international community. Achieving global low emissions and just transitions depend upon accelerated international financial cooperation.
It also depends upon collaboration across different stakeholders so that society can embrace policies and measures for climate solutions and for achieving sustainable development.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We face many crises today. Ominous threats to the world´s peace and security. Food crises. Energy crises. Cost of living crises.
Allow me a provocative thought: These crises pale next to the sheer magnitude and complexity of the climate challenge we face. Climate change worsens energy crises, food crises, and challenges to peace and security. It will continue damaging energy, food, water, health and biodiversity.
But we can elevate our ambitions and take decisive climate action for the benefit of our planet and humanity. Climate change warrants genuine planetary cooperation and solidarity.
By doing so, we may find ourselves inspired and better equipped to find solutions to other global challenges.
Science is an essential instrument with which to tackle climate change. For IPCC scientists, the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity is an important recognition and encouragement.
Therefore, I´m delighted to announce that the generous purse that comes with the Prize will further boost the funding of the IPCC´s Scholarship Programme. This initiative provides scholarships for doctoral students from developing nations, supporting the work of young researchers and strengthening equity, inclusion and diversity in the IPCC’s work. Your generous contribution will allow young scientists to conduct research that advances their understanding of climate change risks and response strategies.
Receiving this prize is a collective distinction and inspiration for IPCC scientists, member governments and staff behind the IPCC. We accept it with great professional pride and humility.
After all, climate solution requires more than science and technology. It calls on everyone to work together to solve a problem that now affects every region of the world and to join in a common purpose for the sake of our planet and our fellow human beings. It asks all of us to be our brother’s and sister’s keepers.
Thank you.
– ENDS –
27 September 2022
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Distinguished Delegates, ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues,
Welcome to the 57th Session of the IPCC!
I am delighted to greet you all, here in Geneva, at our first in-person gathering since the Panel’s 52nd session in Paris in February 2020.
On behalf of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, I wish a warm welcome to government delegations, representatives of observer organisations, IPCC authors and Bureau members.
We are also thrilled to welcome today’s addresses of our distinguished colleagues and friends – Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organisation Petteri Taalas, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme Inger Andersen, the Deputy Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Ovais Sarmad and the Head of the International Affairs Division the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment, Ambassador Franz Yaver Perrez.
As the Chair of the IPCC, I also wish to express our special gratitude to the government of the Swiss Confederation and the Canton of Geneva for their generous hospitality and kind support in facilitating this business session.
Over the past two and a half years of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve made every effort to ensure IPCC’s business continuity. I would like to remind you that we held six electronic and written sessions in total, including incredibly complex and demanding approval sessions of assessment reports from all three Working Groups. I thank you all for your constructive and positive work throughout this difficult and challenging period.
These IPCC assessments clearly state that human-induced climate change is widespread, rapid, and intensifying. It is a threat to our well-being and all other species. It is a threat to the health of our entire planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.
Allow me to remind you that prior to these three reports, the IPCC also produced three special reports and one methodology report during this cycle. I am proud that the Sixth Assessment cycle has been the busiest period in the IPCC’s history. Despite the pandemic, this was possible thanks to the dedication and commitment of the IPCC authors. We thank you for your trust in the IPCC.
The Synthesis Report will be presented to you early next year for approval and acceptance. This will be the concluding chapter of the cycle, bringing together the evidence and the data from the three Working Groups’ contributions and the three special reports.
Looking at the Sixth Assessment Cycle so far, we can collectively acknowledge IPCC’s impact and achievements. Our Special Reports and Working Group reports released during this cycle made a direct and invaluable contribution to boosting global climate awareness and climate action. They provided critical inputs for annual COP gatherings and focused global ambition on limiting the warming to 1.5 degrees. They also contributed to Climate-Land Dialogue and Ocean-Climate Dialogue. The Synthesis Report of the Sixth Assessment Report will directly feed into the Global Stocktake taking place next year.
As we adapt to the new normalcy, I should add here that all virtual sessions were superbly organised and supported by the IPCC Secretariat led by Abdalah Mokssit. Thank you, IPCC Secretariat. Thanks to your organisation, coordination, and collaboration, I am confident that our in-person session this week will run smoothly and seamlessly.
I would also like to acknowledge the outstanding efforts of the Working Group Bureaus, their Co-Chairs and authors and Technical Support Units to deliver the Sixth Assessment Report during the pandemic.
Throughout the Sixth Assessment Cycle, IPCC’s reports have informed the world about how we can enhance adaptation to and mitigation of climate change. I hope that our member governments, now equipped with this knowledge IPCC accepted and approved its summary, will enhance collective climate action and lessen the threat to the health and wellbeing of our planet and all its species. There is no time to lose. Future policymakers will only have fewer options.
The sheer magnitude and complexity of climate change dwarf anything else we face. But by raising our ambitions and taking decisive climate action for the benefit of our planet, we may find ourselves better at finding solutions to other global issues, such as food and energy crises and threats to the world’s peace and security. Our failure to act now will only multiply our challenges in the future.
I hope that this 57th session of IPCC will be another opportunity to reaffirm our resolve for a better climate and a better world.
Returning to in-person meetings may be harder than expected after such a long pause. We all may need to brush up on our live interactions and I look forward to our collective engagement over the coming days.
As the Chair of the IPCC, I thank everyone for upholding a respectful, collegial and collaborative spirit throughout this session. I wish you a positive, constructive and fruitful deliberations.
I now declare the 57th session of the IPCC open.
Thank you.
9 June 2022
Bonn, Germany
Colleagues, Delegates,
I’m honoured to provide this keynote address at the opening ceremony of the first Technical Dialogue.
In the past 10 months the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released a trilogy of reports providing policymakers with the most up-to-date science on climate change. These three reports are a dire warning about the consequences of inaction. Climate change is a grave and mounting threat to our wellbeing and a healthy planet.
We are now busy working to finalise the Synthesis Report with which we will complete the Sixth Assessment Report.
The climate science is clear; our Physical Science Basis report concludes that:
Our report on Impact, Adaptation and Vulnerability shows that these levels of warming are a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet and that the next few years offer a rapidly closing window to realize a sustainable, livable future for all.
As the mitigation to climate change report concluded, we are not on track to limit warming to 1.5°C. Average annual GHG emissions during the last two decades were the highest in human history.
Yes, colleagues, we are at crossroads. Our actions today will shape how people adapt and nature responds to increasing climate risks.
The IPCC reports throughout this entire cycle focus on solutions.
In concluding, I wish to remind you, that the next few years will be critical, but there are ways to improve our chances of success. International cooperation is key to achieving ambitious climate goals.
I invite you to reflect on the knowledge we have developed so far which today is stronger than ever to build the decisions to address the climate challenge.
Thank you.
Wednesday 8 June 2022
Bonn, Germany
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Thank you, Tosi/Chair,
Welcome to this special event to present the IPCC Working Group III report, following our special event on the Working Group II report on Monday and yesterday’s first part of the Structured Expert Dialogue.
We again very much look forward to this opportunity for a direct exchange with you on our findings.
Today’s meeting responds to the Glasgow COP invitation to the IPCC to present its forthcoming reports. It will be followed by the second structured expert dialogue session this afternoon looking at this report.
The Working Group III report provides an updated global assessment of climate change mitigation progress and pledges and examines the sources of global emissions, assessing the impact of national climate pledges in relation to the long-term climate goals.
Among the innovations in this report, which builds on the 2014 Fifth Assessment and the special reports prepared earlier in the Sixth Assessment cycle, are a new chapter on the social aspects of mitigation exploring the “demand side” – what drives consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and serving as a complement to the traditional sectoral chapters on what produces emissions.
This report also includes a cross-sector chapter on mitigation options cutting across sectors including carbon dioxide removal techniques, and a new chapter on innovation, technology development and transfer.
The Working Group III report, finalized only two months ago, assesses progress made in limiting global emissions as well as available options across sectors and systems for reducing and stopping the global warming
The IPCC WGI report on Physical Science Basis launched in August last year and presented to you on Glasgow in November last year showed that human activities have warmed the planet at a rate not seen in at least the past 2000 years and we are on course to reaching global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next two decades.
As we heard on Monday in the Working Group II report, these levels of warming are posing a grave and mounting threat to the wellbeing of billions of people and the health of life on the planet and that the next few years offer a rapidly closing window to realize a sustainable, livable future for all.
Our event will follow the structure of the Summary for Policymakers, looking at recent developments and current trends; system transformations to limit global warming; linkages between mitigation, adaptation and sustainable development; and strengthening the response to climate change.
You will shortly hear the detail from IPCC Co-chairs and authors who prepared the report. But let me summarize the key findings:
We are at a crossroads. The decisions we make now can ensure a liveable future. We have the tools and know-how required to limit warming.
But we have experienced the highest decadal increase in greenhouse gas emissions in human history and we are not on track to limit warming to 1.5ºC.
There is increasing evidence of climate action and there are options available in all sectors that can at least halve emissions by 2030.
The next few years will be critical. But there are ways to improve our chances of success.
However, unless there are immediate and deep greenhouse gas emission reductions across all sectors and regions, 1.5ºC is beyond reach.
Looking beyond technology, the report shows that financial flows are three to six times lower than levels needed by 2030 to limit warming to below 2ºC. However, there is sufficient global capital and liquidity to close investment gaps.
Without ambitious climate action, sustainable development cannot be achieved. Before we invite Jim Skea and Priyadarshi Shukla, Co-Chairs of Working Group III to begin the presentation, we will watch a video dedicated to the report. I look forward to our discussion.
Monday, 6 June 2022
Bonn, Germany
Thank you, Tosi/Chair,
Let me also welcome you all to this special event to present the IPCC Working Group II report, the first of several activities involving the IPCC at these Subsidiary Bodies meetings.
We very much look forward to this opportunity for a direct exchange with you on our findings.
Today’s meeting responds to the Glasgow COP invitation to the IPCC to present its forthcoming reports. It follows the special event at COP26 in Glasgow last November to present the Working Group I report and will be followed by a special event on Wednesday on the Working Group III report.
With that, we will complete the presentation of the three IPCC working groups’ contributions to the Sixth Assessment Report.
Furthermore, we will be working with you here in Bonn over the next ten days to unpack the findings of our reports and to place them in the context of the global stocktake, global goal on adaptation, as well on identifying research gaps for future scientific work and assessments.
Meanwhile, the IPCC is busy completing the Synthesis Report, integrating all the knowledge produced in this assessment cycle.
The Working Group II report, finalized a little over three months ago, examines how the continuing climate change identified in the Working Group I report last August is impacting people, wildlife and farming.
It examines future impacts and risks at different levels of warming and considers the options and limits for humankind and nature to adjust to the changes to our climate system underway or in the pipeline, strengthening society and nature’s resilience to climate change.
Among the innovations in this report, which builds on the Fifth Assessment Report in 2014 and the special reports prepared earlier in this cycle, there are sections on climate change impacts, risks and options to act for cities and settlements by the sea, tropical forests, mountains, biodiversity hotspots, drylands and deserts, the Mediterranean and polar regions, and an atlas presenting impacts and risks from global to regional scales.
Our event today will follow the structure of the Summary for Policymakers, with sections on observed and projected impacts and risks, adaptation measures and enabling conditions, and climate-resilient development.
You will shortly hear the detail from IPCC co-chairs and authors who prepared the report. But let me summarize the key findings:
The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a grave and mounting threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.
We are not on track to achieve a climate-resilient sustainable world.
This report is a dire warning about the consequences of inaction. Our actions today will shape how people adapt and nature responds to increasing climate risks.
And as you will hear, climate change is intersecting with a number of other challenges including biodiversity loss and inequity to increase threats to ecosystems and people.
The report shows that exceeding warming of 1.5ºC, even temporarily, will result in additional severe impacts, some of which are irreversible.
Urgent action is required to adapt to climate change at the same as making rapid deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
Before, we invite Working Group II Vice-Chair Joy Pereira and Co-Chair Hans-Otto Pörtner to begin the presentation we will see the Working Group II report video. I look forward to our discussion.
Thank you.
First Intervention
We have just heard an important message from United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
The IPCC report before us today is powerful evidence that we have the potential to mitigate climate change.
We are at a crossroads. This is the time for action. We have the tools and know-how required to limit warming and secure a liveable future.
Today’s report marks the completion of the scientific trilogy. It is the last piece of the three IPCC Working Groups contributions to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6).
This report provides the most recent scientific knowledge for sound decision-making with unique information about all sectors to complement the regional aspects provided by Working Groups I and II.
It confirms that the IPCC is the authoritative scientific voice of the United Nations on climate change. IPCC is the unique interface between climate science and policy-making.
We will bring closure to the Sixth Assessment Cycle with the Synthesis Report this autumn.
With this, in the period between COP26 in Glasgow and COP27 in Egypt, the IPCC will have provided three vitally important and policy-relevant reports and the Synthesis Report, and will be presenting the findings of these reports, as mandated by last year’s COP in Glasgow. I’m confident that these will be central to the climate talks, decision-making and action on a global, regional and national level.
Thank you.
***
Second Intervention
The critically important Working Group III contribution assesses progress made in mitigation and options available for the future. Building on previous reports, it is looking at enabling conditions across sectors and systems in the aspects of the technological, environmental, economic and social dimensions.
The preceding IPCC reports are clear – human-induced climate change is widespread, rapid, and intensifying. It is a threat to our well-being and all other species. It is a threat to the health of our entire planet. Any further delay in concerted global climate action will miss a rapidly closing window.
This is the report that gives us options. It offers strategies to tackle the critical questions of our time. How can we reduce greenhouse gas emissions? How can we sequester carbon? How can the buildings, transport, cities, agriculture, livestock, and energy sectors be more sustainable?
This report also tells us the status of global emissions. It shows clearly that we are slipping from a trajectory to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
***
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Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished delegates, excellencies,
On behalf of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, I would like to welcome government delegations, representatives of observer organizations, IPCC authors and Bureau members for the opening ceremony of this plenary. I also welcome the media representatives and the general public joining us today for this opening.
We are also delighted to welcome today our distinguished colleagues and friends –Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organisation Petteri Taalas, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Head of UNEP New York Office Ms Ligia Noronha and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Patricia Espinosa and H.E. The Rt Hon Greg Hands MP.
As the Chair of the IPCC, I also wish to express our special gratitude to the government of the United Kingdom for their generous support and facilitation of this virtual approval session – the only option available due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is our third virtual approval session. The preparation for a virtual approval process requires enormous additional supplementary effort to address all conceivable contingencies by the Secretariat, TSUs, and the Bureau members. We thank you for all that effort.
Today, we are embarking on the approval of the Working Group III contribution assessing the mitigation of climate change. The next few years will be crucial for the state of climate change in this century. This is why an updated assessment of mitigation is more important than ever.
The critically important Working Group III contribution assesses progress made in mitigation and options available for the future and enabling conditions across sectors and systems in the aspects of the technological, environmental, economic and social dimensions, building on previous IPCC assessments. The context is sustainable development.
The IPCC assessments so far made it very clear that: human-induced climate change is widespread, rapid, and intensifying. It is a threat to our well-being and all other species. It is a threat to the health of our entire planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.
The WGIII report we have today sheds light on solutions to meet this challenge by providing us with the latest scientific findings of mitigation of climate change.
I would like to acknowledge here the leadership and dedication of the Working Group III Co-Chairs – Dr James Skea and Dr Priyadarshi Shukla, and the WGIII Burau. Their guidance and vision led the work of the team comprising 278 authors from 65 countries to this outstanding outcome.
This approval session marks the completion of the trilogy, it is the last piece of the WG contributions to the AR6.
Before the three contributions, the IPCC in this cycle produced three special reports and one methodology report.
Such workload was unprecedented in the IPCC history. And the three WG assessments were conducted mostly in the years of the Pandemic, but without disruption despite the enormous burden on the assessment teams. The dedication and commitment of the IPCC authors made this possible. We thank you for your trust in the IPCC.
The concluding part of the AR6 will be the Synthesis Report which will be presented to you this September for approval and acceptance. This will be the concluding chapter of the Cycle, synthesizing evidence and data from the three Working Groups contributions as well as from the three IPCC’s special reports. We will return to the usual in-person IPCC session in September for approval of the Synthesis Report. We look forward to returning to normalcy.
Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished delegates,
Our agenda for the coming fortnight is demanding. But I’m confident that our joint efforts for careful, the line-by-line scrutinization of the Summary for Policymakers, will ultimately yield a document– scientifically robust policy relevant–which we will be all proud of.
As the Chair of the IPCC, I urge everyone to uphold respectful, collegial and collaborative spirit throughout this approval session. Only by working together, we can deliver this report to the world.
I now declare the 56th Session of the IPCC and the 14th Session of Working Group III open.
Thank you.