NuseReal

IPCC Report 6

Climate change: Sea levels are rising — and it's going to get worse. Here's how some U.S. communities are adapting: constructing new defenses, restoring natural defenses, or just moving out of the way.  — cbsnews — 28 March 2023 (LINK)

IPCC Report Will Likely Shake Up U.N. Climate Talks: Scientists say countries need to cut emissions far deeper to prevent catastrophic warming. That fact will hang over delegates when they meet later this year at the annual U.N. climate talks — scientificamerican — 24 March 2023 (LINK)

World-Energy: Corporate Interests 'Watered Down' the Latest IPCC Climate Report, Investigations Find — (LINK)

AOSIS: Small island states facing life-threatening risks — (LINK)

Axios: The one UN climate report graphic you need to see: the extent to which current and future generations will experience a hotter and different world depends on choices now and in the near-term — (LINK)

WEF: here's what you need to know — (LINK)

The Daily Beast: New U.N. Report Is Most Radical Call Yet for Climate Justice — (LINK)

The Daily Beast: Ringing the Alarm — (LINK)

Medium: Umair Haque: We Just Got Our "Final Warning" on Climate Change — And It's Terrifying — (LINK)

— UN Secretary-General: "Humanity is on thin ice — and that ice is melting fast."

National Review: The U.N.'s 'Final Warning' about Climate Change Won't Be the Last — (LINK)

phys.org: New UN report: Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius requires deep decarbonization across all sectors — (LINK)

— It calls for the immediate, large-scale adoption of renewable energy like solar and wind, electrified transportation, energy-efficient systems, alternative fuels, and carbon capture and storage technologies across all sectors globally.

ground.news: African nations consider swapping debt for climate funding — (LINK)

My favorite summary:

António Guterrez: ""We are on a fast track to climate disaster," he said, citing rising sea levels, the extinction of one million species, and worsened storms and floods as just a few of the negative effects we can expect. "This is not fiction or exaggeration, it is what science tells us will happen."

Cities Will Be Climate Change Battlegrounds

Solutions, wrote the authors, must include reducing or changing urban energy and resource consumption; electrification; and improving carbon capture and storage in urban environments by expanding the use of biomaterials and permeable surfaces, and creating more green roofs and green spaces. Cities will need to work tightly with neighboring jurisdictions to make the most of these strategies.

One big thing to look for moving forward is retrofitting buildings with new materials so they expel less carbon dioxide. "In 2019, global direct and indirect emissions from non-residential buildings increased by about 55 percent and those from residential buildings increased by about 50 percent compared to 1990," the new report states. We could see a huge decrease in emissions by retrofitting buildings in developed countries as well as the construction of new buildings in the developing world with better materials.

Climate innovation is getting cheaper

From 2010-2019, the cost of solar energy plummeted by 85 percent, wind energy by 55 percent, and lithium-ion batteries (like those used in electric vehicles) by 85 percent. Across the globe, we've seen solar energy adoption expand 10 times over, and EVs expand over 100 times over. In addition, we're also seeing a larger expansion of emerging green technologies like smart grids, biofuels, hydrogen-based energy, and other renewables. There are fewer and fewer reasons for most of the world to ignore the adoption of renewable energies.

Adoption of low-emission technologies still lags in most developing countries. But a combination of decreased technology costs along with financial strategies that make these solutions more accessible could go a long way to enabling more large-scale adoption.

The Transportation Sector Is Still Critical

There isn't much to say here that hasn't already been said before: Saving the world from climate disaster will require overhauling transportation around the globe. “In scenarios that limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius,” wrote the IPCC authors, “global transport-related carbon dioxide emissions fall by 59 percent” by 2050.

They key to getting there? Electrified planes, trains, and automobiles. Along with solar and wind, electric transportation could be one of the cheapest ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Taking Better Care of the Land

On the flip side, one of the most expensive ways to solve climate change will be coming up with new strategies related to agriculture, forestry, and other land use (AFOLU). But this sector is essential to keeping us from careening off the 1.5 degree Celsius cliff, because so much carbon ends up in the air when natural lands and forests are destroyed.

Digital Tech Can Get More People On Board

Surprisingly, the IPCC report was bullish about how new kinds of sensors, robotics, smart devices, AI-powered software, and other digital tools can help increase energy efficiency and make the adoption of low-emission solutions more seamless. The ability to leverage an app could, say, optimize the tilling of the soil or limit electricity overuse, helping reduce carbon emissions with less effort.

Carbon Capture and Carbon Removal Have Enormous Potential —and Nebulous Futures

"The deployment of [carbon removal] to counterbalance hard-to-abate residual emissions is unavoidable if net zero carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas emissions are to be achieved," the IPCC authors wrote. We need a stopgap measure to help us out while we wean ourselves off of fossil fuels.

The problem is that these strategies are still largely in their infancy, and not exactly affordable. Moreover, scientists are still debating how exactly to store all of that collected carbon dioxide.

It's Not Just Carbon Dioxide

Methane is 25 times worse in trapping heat. It continues to find its way into the atmosphere thanks to our reliance on natural gas and the warming of the polar caps. Nitrous oxide accumulates in the atmosphere thanks to a slew of different human activities, especially agriculture and deforestation. This century's climate mitigation strategies will need to encompass all greenhouse gases, not just carbon dioxide.

New Scientist ●: IPCC climate change report: Can we avoid 1.5C of global warming? — (LINK)

WIRED: Warnings About Humanity's Future Don't Get More Dire Than This — (LINK)

Le Monde: 'IPCC have last word on report as long as they don't challenge the interests of major powers' — (LINK)

Chris Packham: New Scientist ●: It's now or never — we need to achieve a sustainable human population — (LINK)

The Guardian: From climate change 'certainty' to rapid decline: a timeline of IPCC reports — (LINK)

ScienceAlert: Landmark UN Climate Report Delivers a Key Message: There's Still Time to Act — (LINK)

PBS: UN scientists warn drastic steps needed to prevent climate change catastrophe — (LINK)

Time: The Scariest Part of the New UN Climate Report? What Scientists Can't Predict — (LINK)

• Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC): the IPCC says that scientists have "medium confidence" that AMOC will not abruptly collapse before 2100. But, if it did, we would quickly face remade weather patterns, extreme stress on ecosystems, and distrupted "human activities."
• The magnitude of sea level rise: global average sea levels are expected to rise up to one meter (about three feet) by 2100. But because the science of rapidly melting ice sheets remains difficult for scientists to understand, that number could also plausibly end up being two meters in the same time frame, a dramatic difference.
• The stakes could be world-changing: the loss of entire ecosystems, the rapid remaking of regional climates, and the destruction of entire regions. It receives just a fleeting mention, but the new report lays out how the future becomes more difficult to predict as climate change proceeds.

BBC: UN climate report: Scientists release 'survival guide' to avert climate disaster — (LINK)

— UN chief Antonio Guterres says a major new report on climate change is a "survival guide for humanity".

"There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all," the report states.

BBC: Five things we've learned from UN climate report — (LINK)

1. There is very little chance of keeping the world from warming by more than 1.5C.
2. Renewable forms of energy such as wind and solar are now cheaper and that sticking with fossil fuels may be more expensive in many places than switching to low carbon systems.
3. While it is easy to think that scientific reports on climate change are all about governments and energy policy, the IPCC has been moving to highlight the fact that the actions that people can take make by themselves make massive difference to the overall picture.
4. Our actions now will resonate for thousands of years.
5. It's now about the politics not just the science.

ground.news: World's top climate scientists issue 'survival guide for humanity,' call for major course correction — 282 sources — (LINK)

CNBC: Fusion is one of the only energy sources capable of massive decarbonization, Tokamak Energy chief says: video 1:20 — (LINK)

— vs the oil industry: "We still need [petrochemicals], medicines, we need the plastics. It's a waste to burn oil to make petrochemicals"".

Euractiv: EU's green industry drive — too little, too late? — (LINK)

— Hurriedly pulled together without the full cost-benefit analysis usually required for major legislative proposals, the move was prompted to a large extent by the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which provides generous subsidies to companies located in the country.

Even the proposals themselves seem a little haphazard. The Net-Zero Industry Act, for instance, contained a target for the EU's energy efficiency directive that was six days out of date on the day it was published.

The proposals were also marred by battles over the inclusion of nuclear, unexplained delays and a target in the critical raw materials act that even the commissioner announcing it said was too low.

Looking back a couple of decades, Europe excelled at clean technologies. It was the birthplace of wind power and a leader in the solar industry.

But it lost its solar manufacturing to China and is in the process of losing its wind industry to the same country. And, while Europe still boasts strong research and development, a recent study by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute found that leading energy innovations are now increasingly taking place in China.

Similarly, China dominates the critical raw materials market, with a stranglehold on much of the world's refining and mining capacity for critical raw materials like rare earths, a crucial component for magnets used in wind turbines and electric car batteries.

EPFL: Global warming kills forests by restricting tree transpiration — (LINK)

EPFL: Andrea Rinaldo wins the "Nobel Water Prize" — (LINK)

— "Living organisms have always propagated along flowing surface streams," he says. "That's true for microorganisms and wild animals just as much as for human beings. And if you look at rivers around the world, regardless of the surrounding landscape, they tend to adopt pretty much the same dendritic structure. That creates 'ecological corridors' that guide the movements of living organisms." Based on this observation, scientists have developed mathematical models for predicting the propagation of invasive species and pathogens across a given region — for example, in event of a cholera epidemic. This marks a major step forward because it lets public health officials take the necessary preventive measures before a disease afflicts too many people.