Comment on the new IPCC report

Dr Joana Setzer, Assistant Professor at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Contributing Author on Chapter 13 of the new IPCC report, said: “This report shows that we will need to rely increasingly on the courts to hold governments and companies to account, and ensure that they act in ways that are more consistent with the pledges they are making domestically and internationally. The report highlights the growing importance of climate litigation, and our research indicates that the number of cases is growing around the world, helping to increase both ambition and accountability.”

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an observer at the plenary approval session for the Summary for Policymakers of IPCC Working Group III’s contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report, said:

“This new report lays out starkly how much trouble the world is now in because governments have been too slow to recognise and respond to the threat from climate change driven by greenhouse gas emissions. The previous IPCC report published in February was very clear about the huge scale of the potential impacts on lives and livelihoods worldwide if global temperature rises by more than 1.5 Celsius degrees. But this new report shows that warming will likely exceed 1.5 Celsius degrees by about the middle of this century, and the best we can now aim for is to bring down the temperature before the end of the century through natural and artificial means of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This means we must accelerate the development and deployment of carbon dioxide removal, even though we are not yet sure of its feasibility and cost at large scale.

“In any case we must also speed up the deployment of zero-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels, the cost of which have fallen spectacularly over the past few years, as this report shows. Europe has learned over the past few months that the dependence on fossil fuels also threatens energy security and affordability.”