PARIS — Humanity has less than three years
to halt the rise of planet-warming carbon emissions and less than a decade to
slash them by nearly half, UN climate experts said Monday, warning the world
faced a last-gasp race to ensure a “livable future”.
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That daunting task is still — only just — possible,
but current policies are leading the planet towards catastrophic temperature
rises, the UN’s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made clear.
The world’s nations, they said, are taking our
future right to the wire.
The 2,800-page report — by far the most
comprehensive assessment of how to halt global heating ever produced —
documents “a litany of broken climate promises”, said UN chief Antonio Guterres
in a blistering judgment of governments and industry.
In recent months, the IPCC has published the first
two installments in a trilogy of mammoth scientific assessments covering how
greenhouse gas emissions are heating the planet and what that means for
life on Earth.
This third report outlines what we can do about it.
“We are at a crossroads,” said IPCC chief Hoesung
Lee. “The decisions we make now can secure a liveable future. We have the tools
and know-how required to limit warming.”
The solutions touch on virtually all aspects of
modern life, require significant investment, and need “immediate action”, the
IPCC said.
The very first item on the global to-do list is to
stop greenhouse gas emissions from rising any further.
That must be done before 2025 to have a hope of
keeping within even the
Paris Agreement’s less ambitious warming target of two
degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
Barely 1.1C of warming so far has ushered in a surge
of deadly extreme weather across the globe.
The report makes clear that investments to cut
emissions will be far less expensive than the cost of failing to limit warming.
Scientists warn that any rise above 1.5C risks the
collapse of ecosystems and the triggering of irreversible shifts in the climate
system.
To achieve that target, the report said carbon
emissions need to drop 43 percent by 2030 and 84 percent by mid-century.
“It’s now or never, if we want to limit global
warming to 1.5C,” said Jim Skea, a professor at
Imperial College London and
co-chair of the working group behind the report.
“Without immediate and deep emissions reductions
across all sectors, it will be impossible.”
To do that the world must radically reduce the
fossil fuels behind the lion’s share of emissions.
Nations should stop burning coal completely and cut
oil and gas use by 60 and 70 percent respectively to keep within the
Paris goals, the IPCC said, noting that both solar and wind were now cheaper than
fossil fuels in many places.
But cutting emissions is no longer enough, the IPCC
said. Technologies to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere — not yet operating to
scale — will need to be ramped up enormously.
While government policies, investments, and
regulations will propel emissions cuts, the IPCC made clear that individuals
can also make a big difference.
Cutting back on long-haul flights, switching to
plant-based diets, climate-proofing buildings, and other ways of cutting the
consumption that drives energy demand could reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40
to 70 percent by 2050.
Those with the most, also pollute the most, the
report said.
Households whose income is in the top 10 percent
globally — two thirds of whom are in developed countries — emit up to 45
percent of carbon pollution.
“Individuals with high socio-economic status contribute
disproportionately to emissions and have the highest potential for emissions
reductions -- as citizens, investors, consumers, role models and professionals,”
the IPCC said.
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