Decoding the IPCC’s Working Group 2 Report – What You Need to Know

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations (UN) body for assessing the science related to climate change.  Its purpose is simple – it was established and endorsed by the UN to provide political leaders with periodic scientific assessments concerning climate change, its implications and risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation strategies.  It has 195 member states.

The IPCC has three working groups – Working Group 1, which deals with the physical science basis of climate change; Working Group 2, which deals with impacts, adaptation and vulnerability; and Working Group 3, which deals with the mitigation of climate change.

This latest Report is from Working Group 2.  We wrote about Working Group 1’s Report here.

The Working Group 3 report is still being written and will be finalised this month.  The Synthesis Report of all three contributions is due in late 2022.  The Report draws upon 34,000 studies and involved 270 authors from 67 countries.  It carefully examines the intensifying impacts of climate change and future risks, and it has explicit regard for developing countries and less resilient parts of the world. 

Should I Pay Attention to this Report?

Yes – it is damning.  Six days ago, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a statement.  Each sentence is sobering, unfiltered, and should make us all stop and consider.

“Today's IPCC report is an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership. With fact upon fact, this report reveals how people and the planet are getting clobbered by climate change. Nearly half of humanity is living in the danger zone – now.  Many ecosystems are at the point of no return – now.  Unchecked carbon pollution is forcing the world's most vulnerable on a frog march to destruction – now. The facts are undeniable. This abdication of leadership is criminal. The world's biggest polluters are guilty of arson of our only home. It is essential to meet the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. Science tells us that will require the world to cut emissions by 45 percent by 2030 and achieve net zero emissions by 2050. But according to current commitments, global emissions are set to increase almost 14 per cent over the current decade. That spells catastrophe”.

What Does the Report Say?

The Report makes a large number of findings, but four are worth considering. 

Firstly, it removes all doubt as to whether human-induced climate change, including more frequent and intense extreme events, is causing widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people.  It establishes that this is beyond natural climate variability.  In particular, in relation to:

·       Overall impacts – it confirms increased heat related human mortality, warm-water coral bleaching and mortality, increases in areas burned by wildfires, tropical cyclones caused by sea level rise and increases in heavy precipitation, and increased ocean acidification, and sea level rises;

·       Impacts on people and communities – it confirms that climate change has adversely affected physical and mental health of people globally. It confirms that extreme heat events have resulted in human mortality and morbidity, that climate-related food-borne and water-borne diseases have increased and that animal and human diseases are emerging in new areas; and

·       Terrestrial, freshwater and coastal and open ocean marine ecosystems – it confirms widespread deterioration of ecosystem structures and functions, with around half of the species assessed globally either shifted polewards or to higher elevations.  It confirms hundreds of local losses of species from the magnitude of heat extremes, as well as mass mortality events on land and in the ocean and loss of kelp forests. It finds that some of these losses are irreversible.

Secondly, it makes clear that these changes and impacts are not uniform across countries and communities.  Places of highest human vulnerability will be West, Central and East Africa, South Asia, Central and South America, small island developing states, and the Arctic.  In places where poverty, governance challenges and limited access to basic services and resources, violent conflict and high levels of climate-sensitive livelihoods (e.g., smallholder farmers, pastoralists, fishing communities) exist, the impacts will be faster and worse.  This is a crisis for everyone, but the vulnerable will be hit first and worst.  Inequity and marginalization linked to gender, ethnicity, low income or combinations thereof, especially for many Indigenous Peoples and local communities, will be most significant.  Between 2010-2020, human mortality from floods, droughts and storms was 15 times higher in highly vulnerable regions, compared to regions with very low vulnerability. 

Thirdly, a number of these changes and impacts are already irreversible and have pushed natural and human systems beyond their ability to adapt.  As we have reported previously, the current trajectory is 2.7° by 2100, and so the following findings are of particular note:

·       At approximately 2°C – global warming, snowmelt water availability for irrigation is projected to decline in some snowmelt dependent river basins by up to 20%, and global glacier mass loss is projected to diminish water availability for agriculture, hydropower, and human settlements in the mid- to long-term, with these changes projected to double with 4°C global warming.  At global warming of 4°C, approximately 10% of all land globally is projected to face increases in both extreme high and low river flows in the same location, with implications for planning for all water use sectors;

·       At 2°C or higher –  food security risks due to climate change will lead to malnutrition and micro-nutrient deficiencies, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Central and South America and on the Small Islands.  Global warming will progressively weaken soil health and ecosystem services such as pollination, increase pressure from pests and diseases, and reduce marine animal biomass, undermining food productivity in many regions on land and in the ocean; and

·       Globally, a billion people are projected to be at risk from coastal-specific climate hazards in the mid-term under all scenarios.  The population potentially exposed to a 100-year coastal flood is projected to increase by about 20% if global mean sea level rises by 0.15 m relative to 2020 levels; this exposed population doubles at a 0.75 m rise in mean sea level and triples at 1.4 m without population change and additional adaptation.  Sea level rises pose an existential threat for some Small Islands and some low-lying coasts.

Fourthly, we need to act now, and we are not on track to make changes.  Meeting 1.5° requires the world to cut emissions by 45% by 2030 and achieve net zero emissions by 2050.  Current pledges are at 1.8°, with current behaviour at 2.7°.  The UN forecasts global emissions to increase almost 14 per cent over the current decade.

Translating to Strategy

There are two types of risks that companies need to understand and actively plan for – transition risk and physical risk.  This Report makes clear that physical risk is looming, and therefore, those manning data watchtowers will need to pay careful attention to an escalation and acceleration of policy and targets which could alter current transitional risk settings.  The COP27 summit, to be held in Egypt in November 2022, will be critical – there will be considerable and growing pressure on governments to both reset and entrench pledges into legislation, and for developed countries to demonstrate their solidarity with vulnerable nations.