Drastically reducing fossil fuel consumption while scaling up renewable energy and energy efficiency is the quickest but also the most affordable path to the rapid, deep emission reductions that can get the climate emergency under control, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes in its synthesis report released Monday.
Restoring nature, transforming industries, and a long menu of other changes to human systems and structures also have an important role to play, the Geneva-based agency says.
Those changes would be “unprecedented in terms of scale, but not necessarily in terms of speed,” the IPCC writes in its 37-page Summary for Policymakers. The “feasible, effective, and low-cost options” to quickly drive down emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change are already known and available.
The greatest hits on the IPCC’s list include:
• Scaling up low- or zero-emission technologies;
• Reducing and changing energy and resource demand by redesigning the infrastructure and services people need;
• Socio-cultural and behavioural changes;
• Greater adoption of more efficient technologies;
• Social protections;
• Protecting and restoring ecosystems.
The stakes on those solutions are unimaginably high, the IPCC warns: if annual emissions stayed at 2019 levels through the rest of this decade, they would exhaust the remaining carbon budget to hold average global warming at 1.5°C. Future emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure “already exceed the remaining carbon budget for limiting warming to 1.5°C” without the use of expensive, unreliable carbon capture technologies, and emissions from planned and future fossil projects would likely use up the remaining carbon budget for 2.0°C.
For even a 50-50 chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C, countries would have to cut their emissions 43% from 2019 levels by 2030, 60% by 2035, 69% by 2040, and 84% by 2050, the IPCC says. Models based on today’s national commitments under the Paris climate agreement, with no future increases in ambition, point to average warming of about 2.8°C at the end of the century.
“Deep, rapid, and sustained” emission cuts and faster action on climate adaptation in this decade “would reduce future losses and damages related to climate change for humans and ecosystems,” the IPCC says. But “delayed mitigation action will further increase global warming” and the resulting damage and hardships, the synthesis report warns.
“Challenges from delayed adaptation and mitigation actions include the risk of cost escalation, lock-in of infrastructure, stranded assets, and reduced feasibility and effectiveness of adaptation and mitigation options.”
Energy Transition at Less Than $20 Per Tonne
In energy, the IPCC’s path to decarbonization begins with “a substantial reduction in overall fossil fuel use,” with minimal reliance on fossil systems that don’t have some form of carbon capture attached. Electrification is widespread, electricity systems emit no net carbon dioxide, “alternative energy carriers” serve uses that are less easily electrified, energy conservation and efficiency are maximized, and energy systems are more effectively integrated.
Even based on published reports that were nearly 18 months old by the time the synthesis was published, the IPCC says solar, wind, and methane reductions can deliver “large contributions” to emission reductions this decade, largely at a cost below $20 per tonne of carbon dioxide or equivalent. Practical climate adaptation strategies can “support infrastructure resilience, reliable power systems, and efficient water use for existing and new energy generation systems,” while a more diversified electricity system with more storage and better demand management can “increase energy reliability and reduce vulnerabilities to climate change.”
A chart toward the end of the synthesis report shows solar and wind delivering by far the highest net emission reductions through 2030 at the lowest cost. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) delivers about one-tenth the benefit at far higher cost. Nuclear, geothermal, hydropower, and electricity from biomass do little better.
The IPCC sees industries driving down emissions through a coordinated effort that focuses on demand management, energy and materials efficiency, circular material flows, abatement technologies, and “transformational changes in production processes”. Here, again, carbon capture technologies come in at the highest cost and deliver the smallest emission reductions through 2030. Sustainable biofuels, electric vehicles, and advances in battery technology all have a role to play in transportation, with concerns about critical minerals and the environmental footprint of battery production “addressed by material and supply diversification strategies, energy and material efficiency improvements, and circular material flows”.
Better Cities, Better Livelihoods
The synthesis report points to a “critical” role for cities in driving deep emission cuts and increasing their own climate resilience. Communities can get the job done by factoring climate impacts and risks into their design and planning, adopting land use policies that “achieve compact urban form”, maximizing the efficiency of buildings, locating jobs and housing closer together, and supporting transit, walking, and biking.
All of those elements and more fit into an “integrated approach to physical, natural, and social infrastructure” that can reduce emissions, increase climate resilience, foster human health and well-being, and make low-income communities less vulnerable, the IPCC says. Making better use of natural infrastructure, on its own or in combination with structures built by humans, “can reduce energy use and risk from extreme events such as heat waves, flooding, heavy precipitation, and droughts, while generating co-benefits for health, well-being, and livelihoods.”
The report lists benefits to human health and food security from a combined approach to climate mitigation and adaptation and connects those actions to better livelihoods and economies.
“Policy mixes that include weather and health insurance, social protection and adaptive social safety nets, contingent finance and reserve funds, and universal access to early warning systems combined with effective contingency plans, can reduce vulnerability and exposure of human systems,” it states. “Increasing education including capacity building, climate literacy, and information provided through climate services and community approaches can facilitate heightened risk perception and accelerate behavioural changes and planning.” Governments at all levels can build buy-in for climate action by drawing on “diverse knowledges and cultural values,” the IPCC says, while finance, technology, and international cooperation are “critical enablers for accelerated climate action”.
Protecting Nature and Ecosystem Services
The report lists a series of emission reduction and climate adaptation options in agriculture, forestry, and other land use that could be “upscaled in the near-term” in most parts of the world. But there’s a lot of ground to cover.
“Maintaining the resilience of biodiversity and ecosystem services at a global scale depends on effective and equitable conservation of approximately 30% to 50% of Earth’s land, freshwater, and ocean areas, including currently near-natural ecosystems,” the IPCC says. “Cooperation, and inclusive decision-making, with Indigenous peoples and local communities, as well as recognition of inherent rights of Indigenous peoples, is integral to successful adaptation and mitigation across forests and other ecosystems.”
Among the options for nature-based climate solutions, the report says curtailing tropical deforestation can deliver the greatest emission reductions, but it cites conservation, better management, and restoration of forests and other ecosystems as the least costly approaches. “Ecosystem restoration, reforestation, and afforestation can lead to trade-offs due to competing demands on land,” the IPCC warns, and minimizing those conflicts will call for “integrated approaches” that factor in a variety of needs and agendas.
Healthier, more sustainable diets, reduced food loss and waste, sustainable intensification of agriculture, methane and nitrous oxide reductions, reforestation, and ecosystem restoration all receive mentions as options for cutting emissions. “Effective adaptation options include cultivar improvements, agroforestry, community-based adaptation, farm and landscape diversification, and urban agriculture.” While some of those options can lead to almost immediate emission reductions, others will take decades to deliver results.
An Urgent Need for Finance
The IPCC points to financing as one of the main catalysts for faster emission cuts and greater climate resilience. But climate mitigation investment this decade would have to increase three- to sixfold to hold average warming to 1.5 or even 2.0°C, with additional funds needed for climate adaptation.
While there’s enough money in the global financial system to get decarbonization done, the report cites “barriers to redirect capital to climate action both within and outside the global financial sector,” beginning with the economic vulnerabilities and debt loads already facing developing countries.
“Accelerated financial support for developing countries from developed countries and other sources is a critical enabler to enhance adaptation and mitigation actions and address inequities in access to finance, including its costs, terms, and conditions, and economic vulnerability to climate change for developing countries,” the IPCC writes. “Scaled-up public grants for mitigation and adaptation funding for vulnerable regions, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, would be cost-effective and have high social returns” by giving more people access to energy.
In rich countries like Canada and the United States, shifting financial flows begins with redirecting public subsidies that governments are still lavishing on fossil fuel infrastructure, with dollars still flowing to measures like pipeline buyouts and CCS subsidies. “The UN Secretary General spoke with great clarity about the need to stop the expansion of oil and gas production,” said Angela Carter, energy transition specialist at the International Institute for Sustainable Development. “Clearly any public funds for CCS in the oil and gas sector must be redirected toward solutions that deliver cost-effective emissions reductions, such as solar and wind, as noted by the IPCC.”
“While government delegates at the IPCC in Switzerland discussed the latest climate science, many of their counterparts back in capitals continued to blatantly ignore it,” added Nikki Reisch, director of the climate and energy program at the Center for International Environmental Law. “The Biden administration’s approval last week of new oil drilling in Alaska is an egregious example of this dangerous disconnect. The science leaves no doubt: we cannot fight climate change without halting all new oil, gas, and coal projects and shuttering existing fossil fuel facilities.”
