The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is releasing its Sixth Assessment Report today 9 August, 6pm AEST and it’s a huge deal.
The Report was prepared by 234 climate scientists from 66 countries and is the most comprehensive and important study on climate systems and climate change in the world. Its findings are as relevant to individuals and communities as they are to governments, policymakers and business.
As such you will probably be inundated with news and media reports of the IPCC report. As climate experts we are expecting the report findings to be very dim assessment on climate change. The Report will provide the most recent scientific findings on the climate system and where we stand on climate change.
The IPCC established in 1988 is the United Nations’ body for assessing climate related science. Its Assessment Reports have been instrumental in the making of global climate-related policy. The First Assessment Report in 1990 argued climate change as a global challenge requiring international cooperation.
The Sixth Assessment Report is divided into three parts. The first part, released today, will be the physical science basis for climate change. The other two parts will be released in 2022, with a synthesis report due in September 2022.
We expect the Report to build on the last assessment report in 2013 and reveal just how much human activity has influenced our planetary systems. We also expect the Report to how soon scientists expect temperatures to rise 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, after which we could enter tipping point. In fact, temperatures in some parts of the globe have already risen above 1 degree, including here in Tasmania!
There was a leak last month warning that tipping point is indeed near, and once we go beyond that we can never recover. This is not a surprise; climate scientists have been warning about nearing the earth’s tipping point for decades. In fact, the idea of tipping points was introduced by the IPCC more than two decades ago. Just recently, I found a paper I wrote 16 years ago on tipping points and climate change based on the IPCC data, back when I was a non-expert Honour’s student, reminding me that this has been in discussion for well longer than I care to remember – with yet any decisive political action.
In 2019, Prof Tim Lenton at the University of Exeter, along with Johan Rockström and colleagues released a report in Nature suggestion the world may have already passed several of the nine climate tipping points . Recently, scientists have warned that many of these tipping points have already been reached with the rapid melting of the Greenland ice sheet, Arctic permafrost, and the discovery that the Amazon basin has turned from a carbon sink to a source of CO2 emissions. The West Antarctic ice sheet, the authors said back in 2019, may already have passed tipping point. We are in trouble. We already know that. We are seeing this manifest in extreme heatwaves in North America, wildfires in Greece and unprecedented flooding events across Europe. The question is: what is the best way forward? It will likely be a massive culmination of pathways to address the crisis radically and urgently.
We are past the need for widespread urgent political action. It is long overdue and has let us and future generations down. It now needs to be swift, radical and transformative, and that includes mitigation and adaptation for the impacts that we are already witnessing, and a change of economic system. But, we also need wholesale behavioural change supported by legislation and technology – technologies that have already been developed and can be fast-tracked into not just circular economies, but circular societies that value human and environmental connection more than economic growth.
Actions will need to be localised, but in keeping in mind the global repercussions. Indigenous and traditional knowledge must be prioritised and incorporated into policies. There will be no one-sized fits all way to tackle the propensity of what needs to be done. There will need to be a decolonisation, a localisation, and contextualisation of all action on climate and sustainability that is no longer anthropocentric. All of the current global policies and strategies that target climate change including the Paris Agreement and the SDGs will need to be re-evaluated in light of the findings, and in the aftermath of the global pandemic that is changing our environment, the way the world operates and our understandings of our connection to nature.
In light of the expectations over the coming days, weeks, months and years, it’s important to look after your mental health – eco anxiety is becoming more prevalent, especially in younger people. That’s when it is vital to know that our actions have reactions, and no matter how large this climate crisis is, individuals can and do make a different. And, despite all the projected gloom, we expect there to be snippets of optimism. We can find momentum in a mentality of climate hope.
*The report is a mammoth feat of authorship, and therefore a sizable document. I will be writing about the first part over coming weeks. If you have any questions or discussion, don’t hesitate to get in touch via the contact form. If you are an individual or community association/group, or policymaker interested in how to use Buen Vivir as a way to tackle the climate problem, please also get in touch. There is a brief guide to Buen Vivir for communities available for download on my website (Spanish only for the moment). If you are interested in the English version or the guide for policymakers, please get in contact. My work on Buen Vivir and the SDGs is also available on the Taylor & Francis SDGs Online Collection (Goal 17: Partnerships for the Goals).
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