There’s no escaping the hard science on 1.5°C at this COP27. On the contrary.
On Monday morning delegates will be presented with a chrystal clear set of key fundamentals on 1.5°C, as the co-chairs of the Structured Expert Dialogue on the long-term goal will present their Synthesis Report.
Their findings include the following:
- At 1.1 °C warming, the world is already experiencing extreme climate change
- Achieving the long-term global goal without overshooting the 1.5°C limit is imperative in order to avoid the most catastrophic impacts. It would reduce the risk of crossing tipping points and triggering potentially irreversible changes in the climate system.
- Climate impacts and risks, including risk of irreversible impacts, increase with every increment of warming.
- It is still possible to achieve the long-term global goal of 1.5°C with immediate and sustained emission reductions.
- Rapidly falling costs of renewable energy present new opportunities for pre-2030 emission reductions.
- The window of opportunity to achieve climate-resilient development is rapidly closing
- The world is not on track to achieve the long-term global goal
- Equity is key to achieving the long-term global goal.
Isn’t that a great list of reminders? Yup.
But as you know, ECO LOVES specificity and hates fossil fuels. So ECO would like to flag a couple of key messages that were underlined by experts at the dialogues, but which didn’t quite make it to the Synthesis Report:
- The IPCC, in the first SED meeting, emphasized that: “immediate rapid reduction in fossil fuel-based emissions is a prerequisite to climate-resilient development pathways”.
- The IEA, in the very same meeting, underlined that concrete, time-bound near-term milestones for fossil fuel phase out and clean energy increase are needed to get on track for long-term targets. The IEA, consequently, presented many such 1.5°C aligned benchmarks.
ECO recognises that climate change is already affecting every inhabited region across the globe, with human influence contributing to many observed changes in weather and climate extremes. Climate change has caused substantial damages and increasingly irreversible losses across ecosystems. The extent and magnitude of climate change impacts are larger than past estimates. Some losses are already irreversible, such as the first species extinctions driven by climate change. The short and med term projections for future climate impacts in coming decades might be exceeding the short-, mid, and long-term projections even under low emissions scenarios.
This brings us closer to Tipping Points that might trigger a complete instability and extinction of entire ecosystems, major changes in weather, irreversibile changes in other patterns and resilience of human communities – even before exceeding 1.5° C.
Finally ECO wants to put attention to the need of a rapidly phase out fossil fuels (to meet the goal with little to no overshoot) as this is not directly captured by the 10 key messages in the SED Synthesis Report.
I would make it simpler: ECO encourages delegates to ensure that these crucial findings are covered in the conclusions of the second periodic review.
ECO believes this decision should in any case reflect that limiting global warming to 1.5°C is not safe – therefore all efforts should be taken by Parties to limit warming even below 1.5°C. In this context it is worth reminding negotiators of the call by UN Secretary-General António Guterres for an “end to our global addiction to fossil fuels.”