SDGs hard to achieve without meeting climate agreement goals: IPCC chair

With temperature having exceeded 1.5°C last year, if only temporarily for the moment, the world is entering a zone where the risks of climate change are high

The world will not achieve sustainable development goals or eradicate poverty unless progress is made in Article 2 of the Paris Agreement, said Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) chair Jim Skea on Thursday.

 

Article 2 of the Paris Agreement includes holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognising that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change. It also aims to increase the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change, foster climate resilience, and promote low greenhouse gas emissions development in a manner that does not threaten food production, while ensuring finance flows are consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.

 

“We are not going to achieve sustainable development or eradicate poverty unless we make progress on all three (the long-term temperature goal, the goal of adaptation and resilience, and the goal of improving finance flows consistent with the pathway towards low-emission greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development). We cannot make progress on any one of these goals unless we make progress on all of them,” Skea said after opening the ‘Multilateralism on the Road to COP30 and COP33’ session of TERI’s 24th edition of the World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS).

 

Skea began his speech by saying (in the context of political shifts in the US), “The IPCC is not a negotiating body; it is a science-policy counterface, and we are required not to provide commentary on political matters. Although we are a science-based body, the science that we assess is certainly caught in the political crosshairs.”

 

“Limiting global warming is a prerequisite for equitable and sustainable development since those who face the worst consequences of climate change are those who have contributed least to its causes. The most vulnerable are in the most urgent need of measures to improve resilience and enhance adaptive capacity. And without enhanced financial flows, we will not have the means to implement urgently needed adaptation and mitigation measures,” he added.

 

The last IPCC report and the first agreement on the Global Stocktake made it clear that the world is not on track to meet any of these goals at the moment. A graph from the sixth assessment of the synthesis report shows that the continuation of current policies will result in roughly constant emissions up to 2050, the pink emissions band at the top, consistent with global warming of roughly 3°C by the end of the century.

 

From a 2020 start, scenarios consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C, represented by the blue band at the bottom, have emissions falling by 43 per cent by 2030. Scenarios consistent with limiting warming to 2°C, the green band, have emissions falling by 25 per cent.

 

“If emissions in 2030 are at the level implied by the current nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the purple band, global warming can still be limited to 2°C,” the IPCC chair said. “There is both an emissions gap and an implementation gap—an emissions gap because the NDCs in aggregate fall far short of what is needed to put us on a pathway consistent with the Paris Agreement, and an implementation gap because committed policies and measures will not allow the NDCs to be realised.”

 

After the IPCC special report on global warming of 1.5°C was published in 2018, Skea was quoted as saying that limiting warming to 1.5°C was possible within the laws of chemistry and physics. “That is still true, but that aspiration is truly hanging by a slender thread.”

 

With temperatures having exceeded 1.5°C last year, if only temporarily, the world is entering a zone where the risks of climate change are high.

 

The effects could be so severe that coral reefs could disappear almost completely at 2°C warming, while the risks associated with wildfires, permafrost degradation, and biodiversity loss rise from moderate to high as warming increases above 1.5°C.

 

Beyond 2°C warming, “we face risks linked to declining yields of staple crops such as maize and fisheries. Truly, every fraction of a degree of warming matters. And now I turn to the third highest floor—financial flows—which are consistent with global emissions and climate-resilient development,” Skea warned.

 

The IPCC’s sixth assessment report concluded that current financial flows for mitigation are three to six times lower than those compatible with the Paris long-term temperature goal. The gaps are smaller for energy supply but still fall short by a factor of two to five. The gaps are larger for energy efficiency, transport, and especially for agriculture, forestry, and other land use. They are also larger for developing countries than for developed countries.

 

Unfortunately, comparable data was not available for adaptation, but it is clear that the gaps are even larger. Private finance for adaptation remains unclear. The goal for developed countries to mobilise $100 billion by 2020 for climate action in developing countries was not achieved by that date, nor by the time the IPCC’s sixth assessment synthesis report was approved in 2023.

 

The IPCC gathered last week in Hangzhou, China, to draft the Seventh Assessment Report (AR7) and a methodology report on carbon dioxide removal technologies. The panel decided that during the Seventh Assessment Cycle, the IPCC will provide a comprehensive assessment report consisting of three Working Groups—The Physical Science Basis, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, and Mitigation of Climate Change.

 

The work will start this year with author selection and a joint (cross-Working Group) first lead author meeting, but the later schedule has yet to be agreed upon.

 

The scoping meeting was held in Kuala Lumpur on December 9-13, 2024. The report outlines were agreed upon by the panel at its 62nd plenary gathering in China.

 

The outline of a Special Report on Climate Change and Cities has been agreed upon, and authors have been selected. The first Lead Authors Meeting will take place in Osaka, Japan, on March 10-14, 2025. The report is due to be approved in early 2027.

 

The outline of a Methodology Report on Short-Lived Climate Forcers has also been agreed upon, and authors have been selected. The first Lead Authors Meeting will take place in Bilbao, Spain, on March 24-26, 2025. The report is due to be approved in late 2027.