IPCC – the time is NOW!

By Selena Randall

This weekend, the UN’s International Panel for Climate Change released the final report in a set of three, provides a stark warning to governments around the world. The findings of these three reports will support negotiations in Paris by governments from around the world next year to work out a universal climate deal.

In part one, released in September, the panel shared irrefutable evidence that climate change is happening, and that human activity is responsible. Greenhouse gas emissions increased more in the last decade than in the past 30 years – things are getting worse faster.

Part two, was released two weeks ago in Japan. This focused on the impact of climate change, and warned of the grave threat to humanity from the changes that are already happening. These changes include damage to crops, more widespread diseases, and increased acidity in the oceans. They include more extremes of weather – storms, flooding, drought, cold winters. In some parts of the world mass migration of people and animals is likely and wars seem inevitable, as some parts of the world become more difficult to live in. Delaying action will make it harder to achieve the necessary change, the report warned.

The final part released this weekend, focused on the solutions, and it urged governments around the world to take action. They pressed the need to take action before things get worse, before pressured resources like oil and coal run out. To avoid widespread catastrophe, the report calls for the output of renewable energy such as solar and wind to triple and dominate world energy supplies in the next 35 years.

With governments to busy with their heads in the oilsands to listen, and some groups saying ‘what’s the point in doing anything – we are all doomed!’, it was hard to feel positive after reading the first two reports.

But this final report is more positive – the best experts around the world think that we can do enough to turn things around. Renewable energy technologies have been getting better and better, and cheaper and cheaper, and in some countries they have become commonplace, which means more available. 

The report highlights the need for greenhouse gas stabilization in the atmosphere through reduced emissions from “energy production and use, transport, buildings, industry, land-use and human settlements”. Some governments have set themselves ‘zero-emission’ targets for energy efficiency, others are focused on energy reduction; some have integrated transport plans, others are linking settlements and industry to encourage people to live closer to where they work and to use waste energy and heat more effectively.

Over the next few months, we will use this column to highlight some of the options for reducing emissions from each of these sources – energy use, transport, buildings, industry, land-use and human settlements. And if anyone would like to have their say on any of these topics, we always welcome new voices to our column.