At a time when the war in Ukraine highlights economies addicted to hydrocarbons, 195 countries are considering on Monday the scenarios that might help limit global warming. And avoid going “with eyes closed towards climate catastrophe”.
After more than a century and a half of development focusing on fossil fuels, the planet has gained approximately +1.1°C on average compared to the pre-industrial era, already multiplying heat waves, droughts, storms or devastating floods.
The warning issued Monday by the Secretary General of the United Nations just before the opening of two weeks of negotiations by UN climate experts (IPCC) is more striking than ever.
“Eyes closed to disaster”
“We are walking with our eyes closed towards climate catastrophe”. “If we continue like this, we can say goodbye to the 1.5°C target. The 2°C target might also be out of reach”, declared Antonio Guterres, in reference to the objectives of the agreement of Paris.
The dependence of the world’s economies on fossil fuels is “madness”, he insisted, in a video message during a conference organized by The Economist.
New IPCC report
State representatives have begun examining the new IPCC report on solutions to reduce emissions, prepared by 278 researchers from 65 countries, and which is due to be published on April 4 following only two weeks of heated discussions. online, and behind closed doors.
In the first part of its report published in August 2021, the IPCC pointed to the acceleration of global warming, predicting that the threshold of +1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial era might already be reached around 2030. .
The second, at the end of February, painted a grim picture of past, present and future impacts on people and ecosystems, pointing out that delaying action reduced the chances of a “livable future”.
Possible paths
The third opus will look at the possible ways to slow down global warming, by breaking down the possibilities by major sectors (energy, transport, industry, agriculture, etc.), without forgetting the questions of social acceptability and the place of technologies such as and carbon storage.
“We are talking regarding large-scale transformation of all the major systems: energy, transport, infrastructure, buildings, agriculture and food”, explained climate economist Céline Guivarch, one of the authors of the report.
Major transformations that must be “started now” if we want to be able to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, she added.
New deadline, not an option
“A new delay in global action is not an option,” insisted Monday at the opening of the session the boss of the Giec Hoesung Lee.
These questions, which affect the very organization of our ways of life, consumption and production, risk giving rise to heated discussions during these two weeks when the 195 States will sift through line by line, word by word, the “summary for policy makers”, condensed from thousands of pages of the scientific report.
In a context made even more sensitive by the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
+2.7° currently expected
“This is a crucial report published at a crucial time when states, companies and investors are recalibrating their plans to accelerate the rapid exit from fossil fuels and the transition towards sustainable and more resilient food systems”, comments Kaisa Kosonen, from Greenpeace.
While according to the UN, the current commitments of the States, if they were respected, would lead to a “catastrophic” warming of +2.7°C, the signatories of the Paris agreement are called upon to strengthen their ambitions to here the COP27 climate conference, in Egypt in November.
War might derail the action
But following a COP26 that ended on “naive optimism”, for Antonio Guterres, the war in Ukraine might conversely derail action in favor of the climate even more. With policies to replace Russian hydrocarbons that risk “creating a long-term dependence on fossils, and making it impossible to limit warming to +1.5°”.
“The 2020s must be those of action,” pleaded the boss of UN-Climate Patricia Espinosa. “If world leaders, public and private, do not make progress in putting in place clear climate plans in the next two years, plans (for carbon neutrality) for 2050 might be irrelevant”.
This article has been published automatically. Sources: ats / afp
