IPCC Chair’s remarks at the United Nations Environmental Assembly – Leadership Dialogue 1 — IPCC

Super-highway or still in slow-motion: are science, data and digitalization really speeding our transition to a sustainable future?
Nairobi, Kenya
29 February 2024

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Your
excellencies, distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

My homework
questions for this session were: Is the world really listening to the science
and data that we already have? How can they be better leveraged to not only
inform multilateral environmental agreements but action on the ground? What needs to change so UNEP and other science-based
organizations stop sounding like a broken record?

Let me start with the
broken record.

The Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change – the IPCC – repeatedly sounded the alarm about the
urgency of climate action throughout its Sixth Assessment Cycle which ended
last July.

I looked back at our media
release for the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 degrees more than five
years ago.

It said: “Limiting
global warming to 1.5°C would require “rapid and far-reaching” transitions in
land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities”. “Limiting warming to
1.5°C is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would
require unprecedented changes.”

In 2022, just two
years ago, we followed up. We said: “It’s now or never, if we want to limit
global warming to 1.5°C.  Without
immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be
impossible.”

We can’t go on saying
that for ever. We are going to run out of rope.

To stop
sounding less like a broken record, we must communicate actionable
findings, and strengthen the regionally-specific aspects of assessments.

But is the world
listening? I would argue that it is, but perhaps our messages have not been wholeheartedly
embraced.

Let’s recognize how IPCC
has helped shape international climate policies. The IPCC introduced the
concept of “net zero” to the wider world in 2018. Today, the majority of global
greenhouse gas emissions are covered by mid-century net zero emission targets.
Formal climate laws, policies and institutions cover more than half of global
emissions. Global emissions have yet to fall, but we have begun to bend the
upward trend. The deployment of renewable energy is expanding, and adaptation
has made some progress across all sectors and regions. Yet, despite all this,
we’re falling short in meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.

IPCC, and other
science-policy platforms, are rightly charged with being policy relevant. IPCC
has clearly had a big influence on high-level aspirations.  But we will see progress that is commensurate
with ambitions only when national policymakers, practitioners and professionals
from all sectors are informed, and empowered to effect substantive changes.

We in IPCC have heard,
loud and clear, requests from policymakers to provide timely information that informs
climate action, taking account of local context. Our Special Report on Climate
Change and Land concluded with a section on “near-term action” which set out
the case, among much else, for investment in individual and institutional
capacity, knowledge transfer, and early warning systems.  The Synthesis Report, approved less than a
year ago, similarly concluded with a section on responses in the near-term.

Ladies and gentlemen,
we will work with you on the shaping and communication of our work. The new
Working Group Co-chairs for the IPCC Seventh Cycle are committed to providing
actionable information and communicating it to the right audiences. But I do acknowledge
that we have further work to do.

Let me conclude with
a final observation. There are obvious gaps between aspiration and action
across all the goals of the Paris Agreement – mitigation, adaptation and
finance. Science can provide the evidential basis for action. But it cannot
fill the vacuum created by policy inaction. Forgive me for sounding like that broken
record. Science alone is not enough. Policymakers, your leadership is critical
in turning the science we provide into purposeful climate action.

Thank you.