It’s over for fossil fuels: IPCC spells out what’s needed to avert climate disaster
Thirty months: that is the very short time the world now has for global greenhouse gas emissions to finally start to fall. If not, we will miss the chance to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis.
The conclusion of the world’s scientists, collated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and approved by all the world’s governments, says this reversal requires “immediate and deep” cuts in emissions everywhere.
The language of the third part of the IPCC’s report is less dramatic than the first two, which placed “unequivocal” blame on us for putting a “livable future” in grave peril. Rather than plainly stating the scale of the climate emergency, the new assessment spells out what needs to be done. Its text was therefore haggled over furiously by those states with much to lose.
But the conclusion is no less stark: a century of rising emissions must end before 2025 to keep global heating under 1.5C, beyond which severe impacts will increase further, hurting billions of people.
“It’s now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5C,” said Prof Jim Skea, a co-chair of the report. “Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible.”
The implication for the biggest culprit, fossil fuels, is clear: it’s over. The IPCC states that existing and currently planned fossil fuel projects are already more than the climate can handle. More projects will lock in even greater emissions and our journey to climate hell. The IPCC warns fossil fuel investors they are on track to lose trillions of dollars if governments act as they must.
Responding to the report, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, had a savage assessment of current political and corporate pledges of action: “Some
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