New Delhi: Net human-caused emissions of carbon-dioxide must reach zero by 2050, says the new Inter-Government Panel on Climate Change, calling for urgent, unprecedented and collective action.
The report, Global Warming of 1.5ºC, is the first in a series of special reports prepared by IPCC as part of the decision of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to adopt the Paris Agreement in 2015. The report was released at Incheon, South Korea, on Monday.
The Paris Agreement adopted by 195 nations, including India, aimed at “holding the rise in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels”. The new IPCC report, however, indicates that global warming impacts have come sooner and hit harder than predicted.
“It is not possible to limit global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius”, said the IPCC, highlighting that it would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.
“Limiting warming to 1.5 °C is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics, but doing so would require unprecedented changes,” said Jim Skea, co-chair of the IPCC working group III.
In one of its key findings, the report stated that global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 per cent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050 in order to control global warming.
Allowing the global temperature to temporarily exceed or ‘overshoot’ 1.5ºC would mean a greater reliance on techniques that remove CO2 from the air to return global temperature to below 1.5ºC by 2100. The effectiveness of such techniques are unproven at large scale and some may carry significant risks for sustainable development, according to the report.
“One of the key messages is that we are already seeing the consequences of 1°C of global warming through more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice, among other changes,” said Panmao Zhai, co-chair of IPCC working group I.
The research stands significant for India, which was also once seen as one of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases, after the US, China and the European Union (EU). However, India strengthened its credentials as a country committed to mitigating climate change after it signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in December 2015 in Paris.
While the US led by President Donald Trump walked out of the Paris accord last year, India continues to remain a signatory and is on track to meet its goals.
India had committed to cutting its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity by 33-35 per cent below 2005 levels and achieving 40 per cent of its electricity generation from renewable sources by 2030.
The report released on Monday is also instrumental in guiding countries to draft their mitigation plan to tackle climate change while considering local context and people’s needs. It would be a key scientific input into the Katowice climate change conference in Poland in December, when governments review the Paris accord.
