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Friday, March 29, 2024

UN to release handbook of climate change solutions for ‘livable’ future

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UN climate experts are set to release what is expected to be the definitive guide to halting global warming on Monday, in a report that lays out how societies and economies must transform to ensure a “livable” future.

With war in Ukraine spurring an urgent energy rethink in the West, analysts say the latest report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will also be an important resource for nations seeking a rapid transition away from Russian oil and gas.

In recent months the IPCC has published the first two instalments in a trilogy of mammoth scientific assessments covering how greenhouse gas pollution is heating the planet and what that means for life on Earth.

This third report will outline what to do about it.

But that answer has sweeping political ramifications as climate solutions touch on virtually all aspects of modern life – and require significant investment. 

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Two weeks of grueling negotiations have seen nearly 200 nations struggling to thrash out line-by-line a high-level “summary for policymakers” that distils the hundreds of pages of underlying assessment. 

That meeting was supposed to wrap up on Friday, but dragged on through the weekend.  The IPCC assessment was originally due to be published publicly on Monday at 0900 GMT, but will now be released at 1500GMT. 

“Everybody has something to lose and everybody has something to gain,” said one person close to the process.

Easy answers are unlikely, with the IPCC expected to detail the need for transformational changes to energy generation and industry, as well as to cities, transportation, and food systems. 

To save the world from the worst ravages of climate change, the report is also expected to warn that slashing carbon dioxide pollution is no longer enough. 

And technologies that are not yet operating to scale will need to be ramped up enormously to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere.

A 1.5C cap on global warming—the aspirational goal of the 2015 Paris climate accord—has been embraced as a target by most of the world’s nations.

Barely 1.1C of warming so far has ushered in a devastating surge of deadly extreme weather across the globe.

UN chief Antonio Guterres warned last month that major economies are allowing carbon pollution to increase when drastic cuts are needed.

“We are sleepwalking to a climate catastrophe,” he said.

In February, the IPCC report on past, present, and future climate change impacts and vulnerabilities detailed what Guterres called an “atlas of human suffering.” 

The report concluded that further delays in cutting carbon pollution and preparing for impacts already in the pipeline “will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all.”

Current national carbon-cutting commitments still put the world on a catastrophic path toward 2.7C of warming by 2100.

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