The need for near-term emissions reductions and human-rights based approaches has never been clearer
Washington, DC — The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability — the second part of the Sixth Assessment Report — released today confirms that irreversible damage is already occurring to natural ecosystems, communities, and human rights, and will accelerate to an unprecedented scale and pace if global temperature rise surpasses 1.5°C.
The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and Heinrich Boell Foundation published an analysis of the WGII report focused on its findings and significance for: overshoot scenarios, technologies and approaches common to those scenarios, and the implications of climate change and responses to it for human rights, Indigenous rights, and social justice. The full analysis can be accessed here: https://www.ciel.org/reports/ipcc-wg2-briefing/
“In this latest report, the IPCC doesn’t just address the severe risks of irreversible harm posed by climate change itself. It also examines the significant risks introduced by human responses to climate change and how misguided measures may compound damage, erode resilience, and exacerbate vulnerabilities,” said Nikki Reisch, Director of the Climate & Energy Program at CIEL.
“Some of Working Group II’s most sobering findings were diluted or deleted from the final Summary for Policymakers approved by State Parties. But while Parties can water down wording, they cannot negotiate away the science,” continued Reisch. “The underlying chapters of the WGII report, including the technical summary, leave no doubt: surpassing 1.5°C will lead to irreparable harm, whether or not return to lower temperatures is even possible. Planning for overshoot and assuming the ability to reverse warming later courts disaster. Technological carbon dioxide removal schemes will take decades to deploy at meaningful scales, in which time severe and irreversible harms could occur. Risky and uncertain technologies like Solar Radiation Management would not address the drivers of the climate crisis and would create significant new risks. Policy choices that lock the world into overshooting 1.5°C and gambling on return, rather than immediately and drastically slashing emissions — including through rapid phaseout of fossil fuel production and use and a halt to deforestation — invite permanent loss and irreversible damage to humans and ecosystems around the world. In the face of this latest IPCC report, such choices are indefensible.”
“For far too long, attempts to address the climate crisis have paid too little attention to social and environmental justice, including Indigenous Peoples and traditional knowledge and gender dimensions,” says Lien Vandamme, Senior Campaigner at CIEL. “The report acknowledges this and affirms that human rights-based climate action must be placed at the core of international climate negotiations and their implementation. Supporting indigenous self-determination, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and Indigenous knowledge-based adaptation accelerates climate-resilient development pathways.”
Vandamme continues, “Lastly, the report once again confirms that governments are failing the countries least responsible and most impacted by the climate emergency. Redress for these harms is a moral imperative, an obligation under international human rights law, and long overdue. This report is (yet another) wake-up call for leaders to finally summon the courage to make strong decisions and deliver funding for loss and damage while phasing out fossil-fuels to prevent the global temperature rise from ever exceeding 1.5°C.”
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Posted on February 28, 2022