IPCC Report: Key Points at a Glance

In early August, the new report from IPCC Working Group 1 was released (IPCC — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) . The picture of the climate crisis is becoming increasingly clear and alarming.

It appears against the backdrop of extreme weather events around the world, serving as a reminder that the shift toward unprecedented situations is already underway.
He emphasizes—once again—the need for a radical and urgent decarbonization of our societies, our production methods, and our lifestyles in order to avoid reaching irreversible tipping points.

Here is a summary of the report's key points.

Preamble: What Is the IPCC?

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 to provide detailed assessments of the state of scientific, technical, and socioeconomic knowledge regarding climate change, its causes, its potential impacts, and strategies for addressing it.”

The IPCC does not, therefore, conduct new research; rather, it takes stock of the current state of knowledge based on a critical assessment of evidence drawn from scientific publications.

These assessments are provided to governments to help them develop policies and set guidelines, and serve as a basis for work during COP (Conference of the Parties) negotiations.

It consists of three working groups :

• Group I It studies the physical foundations of climate and analyzes past, present, and future climates. It develops various possible scenarios based on humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions.
  Group II focuses on the vulnerability of human societies, ecosystems, and socioeconomic systems to climate change, the consequences of climate change, and adaptation options.
• Group III studies climate change mitigation, the evaluation of methods for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and the removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

The Working Group I Report of the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report

The Working Group I report is thus the first part of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report. The Working Group II report is scheduled for February 2022, and the Working Group III report for March 2022.

This report by Group I is the result of an analysis of 14,000 scientific publications by 234 authors from 65 countries, who reviewed more than 78,000 comments.

The key points of Group I's report in French are available here: https://sharebox.lsce.ipsl.fr/index.php/s/Xvdb1wX1Mnw8xqI
All documents related to Working Group I's report, "Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis," are available here: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-i/

What are the key takeaways from this report?

The State of the Climate:

• Climate Change recent ones are widespread, rapid, and intensifying. They are unprecedented for thousands of years.
• There is no doubt that human activities are the cause of climate change, which causes extreme weather events, particularly heat waves, the heavy rainfall and the droughts, which are more frequent and more severe, increases the frequency of weather conditions conducive to fires, and causes warming, oxygen depletion, and ocean acidification.
• Climate change is already affecting all inhabited regions of the planet. The evidence linking extreme weather and climate events to human influence has grown stronger since the last report.
• Unless there is an immediate, rapid, and large-scale reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting global warming to 1.5°C will be out of reach.
  

Possible futures:

The IPCC is working on five emissions scenarios: very high or high emissions, medium emissions, and low or very low emissions

• Future emissions will lead to an increase in global warming, resulting from the sum of past and future emissions

• Global surface temperatures will continue to rise at least through the middle of the century, under all considered emissions scenarios. Global warming will exceed 1.5°C and 2°C during the 21st century unless significant reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions are achieved in the coming decades.
• For every additional fraction of global warming, the changes (average temperature, precipitation, soil moisture) are amplified in every region of the world.

• The frequency and intensity of extreme events are increasing as the climate warms

This means, for example, that a heat wave—which in the past occurred once every 50 years—will occur 14 times more often with a 2°C rise in temperature, and 40 times more often with a 4°C rise. For France, this means heat waves reaching 50°C across a large part of the country in the latter case.

• Carbon sinks oceanic and terrestrial will be less effective to slow the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere.

• The changes that are already affecting all regions of the Earth will become more pronounced as global warming continues.
  If global warming reaches 1.5 °C, heat waves will become more frequent, hot seasons will be longer, and cold seasons will be shorter. With a 2 °C increase, extreme heat would more often reach critical tolerance thresholds for agriculture and public health.
• The climate factors that cause impacts (heat and cold, rain and drought, snow and ice, wind, coastline and coastal ocean, open ocean) couldexceed known thresholds and have serious consequences for people, wildlife, and agriculture.
• As global warming continues, projections indicate that each region will increasingly experience simultaneous changes and multiple climate factors that lead to impacts (for example, megafires combined with a heat wave). These changes will be more widespread and/or pronounced at higher levels of warming.
• The report offers new regional climate information, which are essential for informing risk assessment and adaptation; it also establishes a new framework for understanding what physical changes in the climate—heat, cold, rain, snow, drought, wind, coastal flooding, and others—mean for society and ecosystems.

This detailed regional information is available, in particular, in the new Interactive Atlas, as well as in the regional fact sheets, the Technical Summary, and the full version of the report.

• For some changes, there is no going back in the climate system, such as the melting of the ice caps, rising sea levels, and rising ocean temperatures.
• However, some changes could be slowed, and others halted, by limiting global warming.
• To limit global warming, it is necessary to significantly, rapidly, and sustainably reduce emissions of CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gases. This would not only help mitigate the effects of climate change, but also improve air quality.
  Very low- or low-emission scenarios lead to noticeable effects on greenhouse gas and aerosol concentrations and on air quality within a few years. Differences in the global warming trend would be noticeable within a a period of about twenty years.
• The climate we will experience in the future depends on the decisions we make now. Every metric ton emitted contributes to global warming

Learn More

• View the report, the Executive Summary, the Technical Summary, and the FAQ: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/#SPM
• French translation of the summary for policymakers (Unofficial, volunteer translation by a group of citizens): https://comprendre-giec.fr
• The Awakener - Understanding the IPCC and Its Reports " : https://youtu.be/C_UTlTiVQ_0
• Good Buddy - Summary and Analysis of the New IPCC Report: https://bonpote.com/synthese-et-analyse-du-nouveau-rapport-du-giec/
• Sylvestre Huet – The IPCC Report in 18 Charts: https://www.lemonde.fr/blog/huet/2021/08/09/le-rapport-du-giec-en-18-graphiques
• Summary of the Report by the Shifters : https://theshiftproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Synthese_Rapport-AR6-du-GIEC_09-08-2021_Shifters.pdf