UN Secretary-General António Guterres welcomed a major, new climate science report as a “how-to guide to defuse the climate time bomb”, minutes after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a dire warning urging countries to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions before a 1.5°C future slips out of reach.
“Humanity is on thin ice, and that ice is melting fast,” Guterres told an IPCC news conference in a seven-minute recorded address. A 1.5°C future is still “achievable, but it will take a quantum leap in climate action,” he added.
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“This report is a clarion call to massively fast-track climate efforts by every country and every sector and on every time frame,” the Secretary-General said, a roadmap to address “everything, everywhere, all at once.”
The Summary for Policymakers released Monday warns that about half the world’s population will likely see the impacts of climate change, and the remaining carbon budget to hold average global warming at 1.5°C will soon be used up without drastic reductions in fossil fuel use and a three- to sixfold increase in investment in climate solutions. It also points out that the most practical solutions—beginning with solar and wind power and reductions in methane emissions—are also the most affordable.
Our special report on the IPCC’s climate mitigation report includes these stories:
• Devastating Impacts, Affordable Climate Solutions Drive IPCC’s Urgent Call for Action
• Window for 1.5°C ‘Rapidly Closing’, IPCC Warns
• Swift Action, Inclusive Resilience Vital in Face of Overlapping Climate Hazards
• Shift from Fossils to Renewables is Quickest, Cheapest Path to Cut Emissions, IPCC Report Shows
• IPCC Report Charts a Course for Ottawa’s ‘Clean Technology’ Budget
• Gap Between IPCC’s Science, National Actions Sets Challenge for COP 28
• IPCC Sees Deeper Risk in Overshooting 1.5°C Warming Threshold
In his remarks Monday, Guterres proposed a new Climate Solidarity Pact in which “all big emitters would make extra efforts to cut emissions, and wealthier countries would mobilize financial and technical resources to support emerging economies in a common effort to ensure that global temperatures do not rise by more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels,” the UN news service reports. Under Guterres’ Acceleration Agenda, to be amplified in turn by a UN Climate Ambition Summit in September in New York, rich countries would commit to hit net-zero emissions by 2040, a decade ahead of current plans. Developing countries would agree to a 2050 deadline.
Key elements of the agenda include a coal phaseout by 2035 for rich countries and 2040 for the rest of the world, an end to licencing and funding new or expanded oil or gas infrastructure, safeguards for the most vulnerable communities, scaled-up funding for climate adaptation and for loss and damage, and reforms to scale up climate investment from multilateral development banks and private financiers.
Guterres also called on the world’s oil and gas CEOs “to be part of the solution. They should present credible, comprehensive, and detailed transition plans” with real emission cuts by 2025 and 2030, along with changes in business models enabling them to phase out fossil fuels and scale up renewable energy.
In recent weeks, several of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies have walked back their declared climate plans, after a year of record profits driven largely by energy price shocks resulting from Russia’s war in Ukraine.
