Some 3.3 to 3.6 billion people are living in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change, according to a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released on Monday 28 February.
This document, which is over 3,600 pages long, was compiled by 269 authors on the basis of some 34,000 scientific papers and deals with the impacts, adaptation and vulnerability of human societies and ecosystems to climate change.
Humanity and ecosystems at risk
The report shows how climate change is affecting the lives of billions of people around the world, despite efforts to reduce its impact.
These range from increased heat waves and droughts to floods.
The paper points out that the increasing frequency and intensity of these extreme weather events is leading to a cascade of impacts that are increasingly difficult to manage and that expose millions of people to acute food and water insecurity, particularly in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, small islands and the Arctic.
According to the IPCC, climate change has had “widespread adverse impacts” and has resulted in “losses and damages to nature and people, beyond natural climate variability”.
“The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet”, said Hans Poerner, co-chair of the IPCC working group that produced the report.
UN Secretary General António Guterres called the report “a compendium of human suffering and a damning indictment of leaders’ failure to tackle climate change”.
The most vulnerable disproportionately affected
The report also points out that the vulnerability of ecosystems and people to climate change differs considerably between and within regions, due in part to socio-economic differences and inequality.
The most vulnerable people and systems are thus disproportionately affected in all regions of the world.
The paper also highlights the interdependence of human and ecosystem vulnerability, while warning that current unsustainable development patterns “are increasing exposure of ecosystems and people to climate hazards”.
The urgent need for action to limit damage
Although the increase in weather and climate extremes has already had “irreversible effects”, the IPCC insists on the need to act now to “limit loss and damage”.
“Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all”, the report says.
While the signatory countries of the Paris Agreement have set themselves the goal of containing global warming to +2°C by 2100, striving to limit it to +1.5°C, the IPCC points out that a rise of 1.5°C in the short term (2021-2040) “would cause unavoidable increases in multiple climate hazards and present multiple risks to ecosystems and humans”.
Regarding medium- and long-term risks (2041-2100), the report warns that the magnitude and pace of climate change and associated risks “depend strongly on near-term mitigation and adaptation actions”.
For 127 key risks identified by the IPCC, the assessed impacts in the medium and long term are up to several times higher than those currently observed.
It goes on to add: “projected adverse impacts and related losses and damages escalate with every increment of global warming”.
Thus, in the event that global warming transiently exceeds 1.5°C over the next few decades or later, many human and natural systems would face serious additional risks (some irreversible) compared to staying below 1.5°C.
Adaptation
In the area of adaptation, the IPCC notes progress in the planning and implementation of measures in all sectors and regions. It highlights, however, that progress on adaptation is unevenly distributed and that there are widening gaps between what is being done and what is needed to address the growing risks.
It also notes that multi-sectoral solutions that address social inequalities “increase the feasibility and effectiveness of adaptation in multiple sectors”, while highlighting the fundamental role of safeguarding biodiversity and ecosystems for climate resilient development.
See the report: https://aeur.eu/f/jd
See the summary for decision-makers: https://aeur.eu/f/k1 (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)