World on track to warm by over 3 Degrees Celsius; change would painfully remake life on planet: IPCC report

A United Nations-backed panel of climate scientists have warned in a new report released on Monday that the world may be on track to warm by more than 3 Degrees Celsius - twice the Paris Agreement target - in a change that would painfully remake societies and life on the planet.

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) comes after years of net-zero pledges by national governments, cities, businesses and investors, and it sounds a stark warning on the still-unchecked emissions of greenhouse gas emissions pushing to record levels.

The focus of this report, the third released since August 2021, is on humanity's vast arsenal of technology, know-how and wealth that remain insufficiently deployed in efforts to ensure a livable climate in the future.

Time to limit warming is perilously short. Greenhouse gas pollution must peak "at the latest before 2025" to keep targets alive, the IPCC scientists write.

Based on national pledges made before last November's Glasgow climate negotiations, emissions in 2030 "would make it likely that warming will exceed 1.5 Degrees Celsius during the 21st century," the authors conclude. That puts the loss of the first goal of the Paris Agreement within the lifetimes of many people now alive.

"This is not fiction or exaggeration," said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in a statement. "It is what science tells us will result from our current energy policies."

As bad as that sounds, scientists in recent years have reduced the likelihood of much higher increases, and the report makes clear that solutions are available or foreseeable in virtually every sector:

• There are cost-effective carbon-cutting opportunities that together could meet half the 2030 emissions target. Global GDP would be "a few percent lower" in 2050 than on the current trajectory, not accounting for the benefits of climate damage avoided.

• At least 18 countries have proven that it's possible to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions for a decade running - in some cases up to 4% a year and potentially in line with a 2 Degrees Celsius temperature rise.

• Solar and wind costs fell 85% and 55% between 2010 and 2019, making them now cheaper than fossil-fuel-powered electricity generation in many places.

• Carbon-free and low carbon technologies, including nuclear and hydroelectric power, made up 37% of the electricity generated globally in 2019.

• Transportation, which caused 23% of CO2 emissions from energy in 2019 (16% from road vehicles alone) is poised for change, with battery prices dropping 85% the last decade. Low-emitting alternatives to the production of industrial materials are only in pilot or early-commercial stages.

• The report heralds "digitalization" - robotics, AI, the internet of things - as a powerful way to increase energy efficiency and manage renewable power.

The report's parade of numbers shows just how far away countries are from adequately addressing climate change. Greenhouse-gas emissions in 2019 peaked at a new high of 59 billion metric tons. Carbon emissions from 2010 to 2019 are equivalent to about 80% of all the remaining room in the 1.5 Degrees Celsius "carbon budget," an accounting that scientists use to estimate how much more pollution the atmosphere can stand without heating up past the Paris Agreement's limits of 1.5 Degrees Celsius or 2 Degrees Celsius. The intensity of emissions, or the energy use per GDP, fell 2% in the last decade, but that gain was overwhelmed by increased GHG pollution.

Emissions from existing fossil-fuel infrastructure alone would push the climate beyond the Paris Agreement's lower bar, compounding effects already plain with 1.1 Degrees Celsius of warming above the pre-industrial average. Avoiding that fate, the scientists conclude, means stranding trillions of dollars in plans and infrastructure too dangerous to continue operating, unless technology emerges to capture and dispense with their emissions.

A peak in global emissions before 2025 would require more upfront investment and a faster pace of change than a later peak "but bring long-term gains for the economy," on top of the benefits of climate damage that was avoided, the authors wrote. As it stands, financing for strategies to prevent climate change must grow three to six times above its current level to keep the 1.5 Degrees Celsius goal in play.

Policy is not helping as much as it could. Only 53% of emissions fall under climate laws, and just 20% fall under carbon pricing regimes of some kind - approaches that "have been insufficient to achieve deep reductions," the report states.

In its landmark 2018 special report on 1.5 Degrees Celsius of heating, the IPCC found that to have an even chance of staying below the target, the world needed to halve 2010 emission levels by 2030 and eliminate them by 2050. This prompted the "net-zero by 2050" pledges now common among governments, companies and investors.

The new report updates those figures, saying that all greenhouse gasses, not just CO2, must fall 43% below their 2019 levels by 2030 and 84% by 2050. For a two-thirds probability of meeting the Paris Agreement's higher limit of 2 Degrees Celsius, all gases would have to be cut 27% below 2019 levels by 2030 and 63% by 2050.