Latest IPCC report a stark warning and call to urgent action - O’Rourke
Climate change is widespread, rapid and intensifying, according to an influential UN report released this morning that states urgent, intense action is required if there is to be any chance of reversing the worst impacts of extreme weather events.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report addresses the most up-to-date physical understanding of the climate system and climate change, bringing together the latest advances in climate science, and combining multiple lines of evidence from paleoclimate, observations, process understanding, and global and regional climate simulations.
On the Current State of the Climate the reports stated that:
- It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.
- Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.
- The scale of recent changes across the climate system as a whole and the present state of many aspects of the climate system are unprecedented over many centuries to many thousands of years.
- Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and, in particular, their attribution to human influence, has strengthened since the Fifth Assessment Report.
On Possible Climate Futures
- Global surface temperature will continue to increase until at least the mid-century under all emissions scenarios considered. Global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C will be exceeded during the 21st century unless deep reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades.
- Many changes in the climate system become larger in direct relation to increasing global warming. They include increases in the frequency and intensity of hot extremes, marine heatwaves, and heavy precipitation, agricultural and ecological droughts in some regions, and proportion of intense tropical cyclones, as well as reductions in Arctic sea ice, snow over and permafrost.
- Continued global warming is projected to further intensify the global water cycle, including its variability, global monsoon precipitation and the severity of wet and dry events.
- Under scenarios with increasing CO2 emissions, the ocean and land carbon sinks are projected to be less effective at slowing the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere.
- Many changes due to past and future greenhouse gas emissions are irreversible for centuries to millennia, especially changes in the ocean, ice sheets and global sea level.
On Climate Information for Risk Assessment and Regional Adaptation:
- Natural drivers and internal variability will modulate human-caused changes, especially at regional scales and in the near term, with little effect on centennial global warming. These modulations are important to consider in planning for the full range of possible changes.
- With further global warming, every region is projected to increasingly experience concurrent and multiple changes in climatic impact-drivers. Changes in several climatic impact-drivers would be more widespread at 2°C compared to 1.5°C global warming and even more widespread and/or pronounced for higher warming levels.
- Low-likelihood outcomes, such as ice sheet collapse, abrupt ocean circulation changes, some compound extreme events and warming substantially larger than the assessed very likely range of future warming cannot be ruled out and are part of risk assessment.
On Limiting Future Climate Change
- From a physical science perspective, limiting human-induced global warming to a specific level requires limiting cumulative CO2 emissions, reaching at least net zero CO2 emissions, along with strong reductions in other greenhouse gas emissions. Strong, rapid and sustained reductions in CH4 emissions would also limit the warming effect resulting from declining aerosol pollution and would improve air quality.
- Scenarios with low or very low greenhouse gas emissions and lead within years to discernible effects on greenhouse gas and aerosol concentrations, and air quality, relative to high and very high GHG emissions scenarios.
Under these contrasting scenarios, discernible differences in trends of global surface temperature would begin to emerge from natural variability within around 20 years, and over longer time periods for many other climatic impact-drivers.
Sinn Féin spokesperson on Climate Action, Communications Networks and Transport Darren O’Rourke says the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a stark warning and urgent call to action for governments, businesses, and citizens across the world.
The Meath East TD said the IPCC report represents the latest and most-advanced scientific assessment of climate change and the connection between human activity and global warming.
"The report concludes that it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land and that, as a result, human-induced climate change is widespread, rapid and intensifying.
“The report concludes that the scale of recent changes across the climate system are unprecedented over many centuries to many thousands of years and that global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C will be exceeded during the 21st century unless deep reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades.
“The report is a stark warning. It is an urgent call to action.
“In our recent contribution to the Climate Action Bill debate, Sinn Féin outlined the need for public involvement to be at the heart of the climate change effort. The Government’s punitive approach of carbon taxes and fuel and electricity price hikes will simply not work. It is clear from today’s report that an unprecedented collaborative and collective effort will be needed to address the increasing climate emergency. The Government here would do well to take note.”