François Gemenne is a specialist in environmental geopolitics and Director of the Hugo Observatory, which is dedicated to environmental migration. He is one of the main authors of the second part of the sixth assessment report of the ‘Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’ (IPCC). In an interview with EUROPE on Monday 4 April, this Belgian political scientist, who is very involved in the French public debate (he lives in France), went back over the main findings of this report, while disclosing to us his fears for the climate, given the current geopolitical context. (Interview by Damien Genicot)
Agence Europe - What are the main conclusions of the second part of the new IPCC report to which you contributed?
François Gemenne - The first message is that the impacts of climate change are already present. It is therefore not a question of talking about it in the future, but in the present. It is important to realise that these impacts also affect industrialised countries.
The second message is that we are already reaching the limits of adaptation to the impacts of climate change in some regions or areas. It will therefore not be possible to adapt to everything. Sometimes the impacts of climate change will result in dead-weight losses that will need to be financially compensated.
The third message is about inequality. The report shows that climate change can increase inequalities within a society, but also that a more unequal society is more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. It is a vicious circle.
Hence the need to ensure a just transition…
Absolutely. The report stresses the need to accompany climate change measures with social policies for equality.
In the late afternoon, the IPCC will release the third and final part of its 6th assessment report (see EUROPE 12925/16). In particular, it shows that the emissions peak must be attained by 2025 at the latest to limit warming to 1.5°C, the most ambitious target of the Paris Agreement. Do you think that politicians have actually already given up on this goal?
I don’t think so. I think that in reality many politicians have not yet realised the extent of the shift needed if we are to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement. In my opinion, many people still maintain these objectives as a kind of “Coué method”, saying to themselves that giving up on them would mean starting with an objective of 3°C, for example, with the risk of ending up with a 5°C increase. If we move the target backwards each time, the dikes will break.
It is common in energy and climate-related debates for some MEPs to argue that the IPCC recommends an increase in nuclear power generation. What exactly does the IPCC say about this?
This is a misreading of the IPCC reports. Inherently, the IPCC never recommends the implementation of a particular policy. It simply assesses several energy mix scenarios, some of which include a share of nuclear power. But there are also scenarios that are 100% renewable and others that include a larger share of fossil fuels. Members who would have us believe that the IPCC recommends increasing the share of nuclear power are therefore misreading the report, or deliberately lying.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, some EU Member States have indicated that they may increase their reliance on coal in the short term, while others are calling for an acceleration of the deployment of renewable energy and/or nuclear power. In parallel, the European Commission and the White House agreed to increase deliveries of American liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the EU (see EUROPE 12919/2). How do you assess the impact of this war on the climate issue in the short term, but also in the longer term on international climate relations?
I think there is first of all a certain form of consensus on the short-term imperative to get out of Russian gas and oil as soon as possible. It is striking that it took a war for some countries to realise the extent to which our dependence on hydrocarbons puts us in a position of weakness vis-à-vis autocratic regimes.
It is also striking to hear defence and security officials saying essentially the same thing as the IPCC authors. It seems that the global warming argument was not enough and that the geopolitical argument, together with the purchasing power argument, will perhaps convince some people of the need to move away from fossil fuels.
In the first instance, however, it is possible that countries will use either coal or shale gas to stop funding the war, which is like trading the plague for cholera. The major issue will therefore be the articulation between short-term and long-term logics.
The other issue is obviously the question of international climate negotiations. And now I’m a bit worried about how COP27 [Editor’s note: the 27th UN climate conference] will be organised, for example. While Russia can be excluded from the football World Cup or Eurovision, it cannot be excluded from international climate negotiations.
I am very much afraid that international climate cooperation will be collateral damage of this war and that we will end up with a world divided between liberal democracies on the one hand and authoritarian dictatorships on the other, where Russia, the world’s fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases, would have the support of China, the largest emitter, and/or potentially India, the third largest emitter.
Today, in the 21st century, the disengagement of these countries from the fight against climate change is like a nuclear bomb. It is the assurance of mutually assured destruction.
You have recently published a new book on the geopolitics of climate. How do you analyse the EU’s action in the international climate negotiations?
I think the EU made a strategic mistake in the first place by thinking that they could lead everyone by virtue, by setting an example. Being virtuous is not enough.
The EU must, in my view, further develop its external action to combat climate change. We remain too focused on reducing our own emissions. By 2030 or 2035, the EU will account for only 10% of global emissions. The fight against climate change will therefore largely take place outside the EU, not just in Washington or Beijing.
The link with the war in Ukraine is again obvious to me. I think that Russia or China will seek out allies in Africa and Asia by offering them cheap hydrocarbons. If the EU wants these countries, which are tomorrow’s emitters, to choose low-carbon development trajectories, it is essential that it offers them access to technology and financing as a matter of urgency. Otherwise, it will be impossible to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement.
The IPCC reports constantly emphasise the urgency of action. Yet the fight against climate change is often relegated to the background, as the current presidential campaign in France shows. How do you explain this and what can be done about it?
In my view, one of the problems in the current political treatment is that climate change is still readily regarded as just another problem. It thus competes with other issues that sometimes lead to contradictory political choices.
The second problem is that I sometimes have the impression that researchers remain on the sidelines for the sake of neutrality, whereas they should be more involved in the public debate and recommending certain policies.
Finally, it is important to realise that there are also a lot of countervailing forces that do not want to see the radical measures necessary to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, given the scale of the transformations involved.
Is there any reflection within the IPCC on this idea of investing more in the public debate?
Not really yet. We are stuck in a kind of path dependency, with extremely sophisticated procedures that are very difficult to change. Moreover, the state of the debate is not the same around the world.
The question is whether to follow the same pattern and produce a seventh or eighth evaluation report or to try to change things for the following reports.
Could the ‘European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change’ established by the European Climate Law (2021/1119) contribute to strengthening the presence of scientists in the public debate?
This is possible, in the same way as the ‘Haut Conseil pour le climat’ in France is more involved in the French public debate.