Reflections on the IPCC report
This last week has had a real feeling of deja vu for me. Way back in 2018 I read an IPCC report on what a world with 1.5 degree of warming would look like. You might have never read an IPCC report (they aren’t available in many bookshop) but this one was big. It scared the bejesus out of me. I did the only logical thing in response. Which was to start sending out a weekly newsletter on my not always especially well informed opinions. It was cathartic for me and I think only mildly annoying for the recipients. Over time my ability to maintain the habit of sending a weekly newsletter dwindled significantly after the first couple of years, but I kept trying to keep up.
This week the IPCC came out with a new report. It is unpretentiously called the Synthesis Report for the Sixth Assessment. It represents the summation of years worth of work from 1,000s of scientists and thinkers across the world. Sounds pretty dry right? Well it’s actually kind of wild. You might have seen some of the headlines from those who cover all things climate change. The articles are quite easy to spot because they are normally accompanied by pictures of fires or floods or some other catastrophe. Unfortunately those images are as apt as they are alarming.
I decided that given the work that goes into this stuff it was only polite to read it and reflect on what it might mean for those of us who work on this topic everyday. Below are my thoughts. They are just that, some thoughts, not necessarily fully cogent and certainly not as well informed as the report itself. But perhaps useful as a digest for some.
What is the IPCC Sixth Assessment?
Firstly, what is this thing? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is an agency run by the UN to act as our single source of truth on all things climate change. They are tasked with organising the global governance around efforts to combat the causes and effects of climate change (i.e. the COPs), as well as producing these reports. The cycle for each report is long and this is the end of the sixth one. Whilst the work they do is complicated and commendable it is a source of much awkwardness that since the establishment of the IPCC in 1989 we’ve seen a rapid acceleration of emissions — with as much 50% of all carbon emissions since 1850 coming in the last 30 years. That fact doesn’t help create the impression the work is working. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be read and taken seriously.
What does the report say?
There is no new science in this report. That was covered in the various interim reports published over the last two years. Instead this is designed to be a synthesis that can be used by lay people, and even policymakers, to shape their responses. The report is not an easy read. The first reason why is because it is written by a committee of 1,000s of scientists and approved by diplomats from 195 countries. There isn’t a lot of sparkling prose and all statements are caveated with a level of confidence which is a bit distracting until you get used to it. The referencing and footnoting game is world-class.
The second, more important, reason is because it paints a fairly dire picture. In the words of the report:
“climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health. There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all…. [t]he choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts now and for thousands of years”.
Yep, that’s right. Thousands of years.
The first part of the synthesis goes through the ways in which that threat plays out and the impact it is likely to have. Part of the issue with this issue is that the enumeration of those impacts quickly becomes overwhelming. No amount of cute data visualisation can really capture the massive probable disruption. Perhaps the best attempt is this view of how different the lives of those born today will be in terms of the climate they experience versus any previous generation (even mine). Things that feel extreme today are going to be very average very soon. The record-breaking, fire-starting 40 degree summer we just had in the UK, for instance, will be something my sons’ experience regularly in all versions of the future.
The second half of the report is concentrated on what needs to be done and how it might be achieved. It is uncompromising in its view that “[r]apid and far-reaching transitions across all sectors and systems are necessary” but also that “feasible, effective, and low-cost options for mitigation and adaptation are already available”. This is for me the most hopeful and most frustrating part of reading this kind of work. Hopeful because this is not an insoluble problem beyond the reaches of human endeavour or capability. Frustrating because that capability and endeavour is not even nearly being applied in the ways that it could be. And it’s take SO damn long to even start trying. Literally my whole lifetime.
There are many who point angrily at those they see as stymying this process. I think it is fair to assume that anger will grow and there are undoubtedly villains in this story. The politics of climate change have been messy before and I think they are going to get messy, and angry and hard again. The blame game is seductive. I often find myself feeling uncomfortably angry when I read about something that makes absolutely no sense. But I’m not personally sure it is useful. I would rather focus on trying to radically accelerate the change needed to overcome this inertia. The report points to many, many ways to do this. Just a subset are included in this view of how we might go about scaling up action in ways that are readily available and affordable.
What next?
Towards the end of the report the authors are keen to emphasise what is possible. They state, with confidence, that “[t]here is sufficient global capital to close the global investment gaps” and that “enhancing technology innovation systems is key”. This is not a fundamental science problem. This is a solvable, addressable, human problem.
I’m fortunate enough to get to work on responses to the climate emergency all day. It sometimes feels hard but I don’t think there is anything else I’d want to be spending my time doing at this stage. Reading this report is simultaneously shocking and galvanising. Surely it is not beyond the wit of the many 1,000s — maybe even 100,000s — of people who are dedicating their energies to this response to make meaningful and material progress in the next decade.
I’m very certain that changes to our climate, and the consequences of those changes, will be the single biggest influence on how we live and work in the next two decades. Even bigger than large language models with non-threatening sounding names. It isn’t often you get the opportunity to shape things for thousands of years to come. This is that chance.
