I Read The Latest IPCC Report So You Don’t Have To

i read the latest ipcc report so you don’t have to

WILL SALKELD

CW: Discussions of Climate Change and existential risk

Reading any Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is a bit like going to the dentist. Every year, you dread it. It reveals the inaction since the last visit and the increasing risks posed for you later in life. As climate-anxiety-inducing as they may be, I do believe there are takeaways which can guide our individual decision making and understanding of the global climate situation. So, I read one of the latest IPCC reports, Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change (the condensed version for policymakers) so that you don’t have to.

A Tale of Huge Cities: Increased Emissions in Urban Areas Source: IPCC Working Group III contribution to the IPCC sixth assessment report (AR6)

A key message from the 2022 Working Group III IPCC report (Mitigation of Climate Change) was the role that increasing urbanisation had in anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions growth. The energy supply and industry sectors decreased their emissions output and transport remained about the same. Just between 2015-2020, the share of emissions that can be attributed to activity in urban areas increased from 62 percent to an estimated 67-72 percent.

There are several reasons why cities contribute so much to emissions. One, there is a strong correlation between income (typically higher in urban areas) and GHGemitting activities like household energy use. Two, the ever-increasing construction of buildings in our cities involves using materials such as steel whose production is emissions-intensive.

Notes: The below percentages do not include the final location of energy use. For example, if energy use for electricity and heating is allocated to the final location where it is used, the percentage of Buildings would increase to 16 percent and industry would increase to 34 percent.

There is hope though. Sustainable production processes for basic materials (like steel and plastic) are on their way. The IPCC reports these technologies are either in the development stage or ready for commercial use – they just aren’t being adopted by industry. These sustainable processes cost more for businesses but would only entail a small increase for consumers, you, and me. Governments could subsidise the adoption of these sustainable production practices.

Technology and Renewables: Looking Good for the 2010s

Many will have heard the classical argument for maintaining coal mines: coal is a cheap source of energy. While the premises of these arguments are shaky at best, the 2010s proved that the case for the uptake in renewable energies is more than a shut book. Solar energy-reduced 85 percent in price per unit in the 2010s, which the IPCC accredits to government policies that stimulate research and development (R&D) into these technologies.

Yet these technologies aren’t distributed evenly across the world. Developing countries lack the financial and other enabling conditions to uptake low-emissions technology. While spending on climate change mitigation increased by 60 percent in the 2010s, most of this spending did not reach low-income countries. There must be a global effort to assist developing nations in fostering economic environments which allow for low-emissions technology and human development.

The market environment for electric vehicles (EVs) is going well, with the deployment of EVs increasing by more than 100 percent over the 2010s. But there needs to be widespread improvements in infrastructure (everyone has heard the excuses of not being able to plug-in an EV in the backroads of the Australian country). There is also concern that we are depleting the minerals used for EV batteries. More research is needed into alternatives.

What about planes and ships? The news isn’t good. Biofuels and other alternative fuel sources seem to be the best option for aviation and shipping emissions reductions. Yet, alternative fuel sources will not be used by these industries unless the fuel becomes cheaper either through R&D or government policy. We already knew all this gloom. Is there anything new from this report?

How are governments doing? You probably already know the answer.

We can make a tangible impact on mitigating the climate crisis. First, we have a role in shaping a grassroots and stakeholder-consulting culture around land use, particularly in returning to Indigenous practices around custodianship. A global response to land use’s contribution to climate change would the IPCC believes that five percentof global emissions fall short because of the unique culture, policy, and economic constraints of each country. Most global forests and agricultural land are Indigenous owned could be reduced at and managed, along with private forest a rapid pace if we owners, local farmers, and communities.. change our cultural and behavioural practices towards consumption. We can contribute to the management of lands by fostering collective action in our community groups and engaging with local governments. Amongst governments, philosophers, and the average citizens, there are intense debates about our individual responsibility of changing our consumption behaviour to mitigate climate change. I will not make a value-judgement on these complicated discussions. I will say, however, that the IPCC believes that five percent of global emissions could be reduced at a rapid pace if we change our cultural and behavioural practices towards consumption. If we live in an urban area, our opportunity to influence climate mitigation policies is even higher. Whatever educational, work, or domestic environment we find ourselves in, there is an imperative to focus on improving our existing buildings instead of creating new ones.

To contextualise the responses of governments, we must set the stakes of what we are trying to avoid and what our goals are to achieve that. Our critical aim is to limit warming to less than two degrees with a more than 67 percent likelihood. I won’t go into the details of what these extra degrees of warming mean for our futures – we are all too aware of these facts. Every country has set National Determined Contributions (NDCs) – essentially a promised reduction in emissions by a certain year. The IPCC report uses the NDCs reported before last year’s COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. While countries agreed to revisit their NDCs at COP26, considering they are generally not on track to achieve their initial promises, it is adequate to use pre-COP26 NDCs.

If we were to prevent all new GHG-emitting infrastructure projects, just the existence of our current projects would push us over the 1.5 degree mark, and we would arrive roughly around the goal of 2.0 degree target. Yet, it is fanciful that these projects will cease any time soon. Once all efforts towards emission reduction have been achieved, there will still be unavoidable residual emissions from all our human activity. The IPCC warns we will have to remove carbon from the atmosphere if we ever want net zero emissions.

So, there you have it. I read the IPCC report, so you didn’t have to. I don’t like going to the dentist, and there usually isn’t good news. But sometimes it’s worth knowing what the damage in my older years will be. Flossing and brushing twice a day, just like individual actions we take to mitigate our effects on climate change, have no guarantee of changing the course of the outcome. It is still worth knowing, nonetheless, that flossing and brushing are always an option.