U.N. Panel: Time Running Out to Prevent Worst Impacts of Climate Change

It is not too late for the world to act and counter the impacts of ris­ing global tem­per­a­tures, the United Nations has warned.

The lat­est report pub­lished by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) focuses on how research, tech­nol­ogy and coop­er­a­tion can enable mit­i­ga­tion strate­gies against the worst con­se­quences of cli­mate change.

The report asks for rapid action and lists a detailed series of inter­ven­tions and strate­gies that may be employed to pre­vent the steady rise of global tem­per­a­tures. It also con­sid­ers the insti­tu­tional, finan­cial, social and envi­ron­men­tal issues related to these inter­ven­tions and strate­gies.

“We have the sci­ence. We have the tech­nol­ogy. We now need a coor­di­nated effort both on an inter­na­tional and local level,” Rachid Mrabet, direc­tor of research at the National Institute for Agricultural Research in Morocco and a co-author of the report, told Olive Oil Times.

“Governance and insti­tu­tional capac­ity are essen­tial. Finance is cru­cial. We need all play­ers to act, from cit­i­zens to indus­try, to gov­ern­ments and local insti­tu­tions. We have the means,” he added.

The lat­est IPCC report is the third install­ment of the organization’s Sixth Assessment Report. The pre­vi­ous parts demon­strated the evi­dence that a cli­mate dis­as­ter is already under­way, explored its impacts and how human­ity and the nat­ural world can or will adapt.

The new report is devoted to what is being done and could be done to mit­i­gate cli­mate change, focus­ing on mit­i­ga­tion-enabling con­di­tions.

In a note, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres remarked on the sig­nif­i­cance of this ​“crit­i­cally impor­tant” report pro­duced by hun­dreds of sci­en­tists from dozens of coun­tries over almost four years.

“This is the report that gives us options. It offers strate­gies to tackle the crit­i­cal ques­tions of our time,” he said. ​“How can we reduce green­house gas emis­sions? How can we sequester car­bon? How can the build­ings, trans­port, cities, agri­cul­ture, live­stock and energy sec­tors be more sus­tain­able?”

IPCC experts said ris­ing green­house gas (GHG) emis­sions showed signs of slow­ing down from 2010 to 2019 com­pared to the pre­vi­ous decade. However, since 1990, anthro­pogenic GHG emis­sions have been steadily ris­ing from all sources with sig­nif­i­cant accel­er­a­tions in fos­sil fuel-related emis­sions.

“Very rel­e­vant mit­i­ga­tion poten­tial is there,” Mrabet said. ​“What we need is tech­nol­ogy trans­fer from the Global North to the Global South, which has slowed down with the Covid-19 pan­demic.”

“Also, financ­ing is needed, with larger sums devoted to forestry and sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture,” he added. ​“We have to cope with many dif­fer­ent social con­texts, where poverty and food inse­cu­rity still touch mil­lions of peo­ple.”

“We need to look at the local cul­ture, ways and soci­eties,” Mrabet con­tin­ued. ​“We have to respect that and work with insti­tu­tions. We can­not only offer tech­nol­ogy and mit­i­ga­tion options with­out work­ing on enabling local con­di­tions. We need to shift the par­a­digm.”

Should emis­sions not be cur­tailed soon, researchers believe global sur­face tem­per­a­tures will eas­ily exceed 1.5 ºC com­pared to the pre-indus­trial era.

“If we do not act, we are head­ing towards a sce­nario in which tem­per­a­tures could have grown over 2 °C or even dou­ble that by the end of the cen­tury,” Mrabet said.

According to the report, to stay within the 1.5 °C limit, GHG emis­sions should peak before 2025, and by 2023 global emis­sions should be slashed by 43 per­cent.

Only net-zero global emis­sions will allow global tem­per­a­tures to sta­bi­lize, warned the sci­en­tists. Exceeding 1.5 °C will expose the planet to an unpre­dictable state of cli­mate extremes and unprece­dented stress to the ecosys­tem.

Agriculture, forestry and land man­age­ment accounted for 13 to 21 per­cent of global anthro­pogenic GHG emis­sions from 2010 to 2019. It is believed that man­aged and nat­ural ecosys­tems acted as car­bon sinks in the same period, absorb­ing around one-third of all car­bon diox­ide emis­sions deriv­ing from human activ­i­ties.

According to the report, defor­esta­tion is declin­ing but still accounts for 45 per­cent of all agri­cul­ture, forestry and land man­age­ment emis­sions.

Researchers noted that these three sec­tors can pro­vide between 20 and 30 per­cent of the global mit­i­ga­tion needed to reach the 1.5 °C or 2 °C lim­its by 2050.

Protection and restora­tion of forests, peat­lands, coastal wet­lands, savan­nas and grass­lands are cru­cial in the mit­i­ga­tion effort.

Agriculture mit­i­ga­tion poten­tial is enor­mous, with up to 4.1 giga­tons of car­bon diox­ide per year com­ing from crop­land and grass­land soil car­bon man­age­ment, agro­forestry, use of biochar, improved rice cul­ti­va­tion and live­stock and nutri­ent man­age­ment.

“When we con­sider the land, we also have to con­sider cities, which are get­ting larger and larger,” Mrabet said. ​“They are land, and they have mul­ti­ple needs, like food. Vertical farms, which are now fea­si­ble, can help mit­i­gate their impact.”

The report high­lights how food sys­tems account for approx­i­mately 23 to 42 per­cent of global GHG emis­sions and how they impact house­holds’ car­bon foot­print even more than energy.

According to the report, food accounts for 48 to 70 per­cent of the total impact on water and land. As meat, dairy and processed food con­sump­tion rise, so does the house­holds’ over­all impact, given the high methane and nitrous oxide emis­sions con­nected to such food pro­duc­tion.

As a result, the researchers believe that the whole food sys­tem, from pro­duc­tion to con­sump­tion, should undergo pro­found changes to meet the cli­mate tar­gets.

The report explic­itly asks for the imple­men­ta­tion of plant-based diets, the reduc­tion of food waste and build­ing with wood, bio­chem­i­cals and bio-tex­tiles. Such strate­gies would reduce land needs, pro­vid­ing crit­i­cal space for refor­esta­tion and restora­tion while also decreas­ing emis­sions that fuel ris­ing tem­per­a­tures.

“Emerging food tech­nolo­gies such as cel­lu­lar fer­men­ta­tion, cul­tured meat, plant-based alter­na­tives to ani­mal-based food prod­ucts, and con­trolled envi­ron­ment agri­cul­ture can sub­stan­tially reduce direct GHG emis­sions from food pro­duc­tion,” IPCC sci­en­tists wrote. ​“These tech­nolo­gies have lower land, water, and nutri­ent foot­prints and address con­cerns over ani­mal wel­fare.”

The report high­lights mea­sures such as dietary guide­lines sus­tained by food labels to encour­age novel food sys­tems, which the researchers believe should be manda­tory as they empower cit­i­zens and increase aware­ness on rel­e­vant issues such as ani­mal wel­fare and fair trade.

The con­tin­ued loss of bio­di­ver­sity makes ecosys­tems less resilient to cli­mate change extremes, and this might hin­der the progress of the agri­cul­ture, forestry and land man­age­ment mit­i­ga­tion poten­tials, the report fur­ther warned.

“We need to work simul­ta­ne­ously on all sec­tors,” Mrabet said. ​“Agriculture and food, of course, but also trans­port, energy, build­ing and so on. We have to change our behav­ior, the way we con­sume food and use energy. Our life should move towards becom­ing emis­sions-neg­a­tive as oppo­site to the cur­rent emis­sion-pos­i­tive sit­u­a­tion.”

Agriculture, forestry and land man­age­ment mit­i­ga­tion strate­gies do not only apply to larger coun­tries, noted the researchers, as many smaller coun­tries and regions, par­tic­u­larly with wet­lands, have dis­pro­por­tion­ately high lev­els of mit­i­ga­tion poten­tial den­sity from the three sec­tors.

According to Guterres, these find­ings and the other IPCC reports pub­lished since COP26 in Glasgow will pave the way for COP27, the fol­low­ing inter­na­tional sum­mit on cli­mate change that will take place next November in Egypt.

“I’m con­fi­dent that these will be cen­tral to the cli­mate talks, deci­sion-mak­ing and action on a global, regional and national level,” he said.

• IPCC
• IPCC