Gap between climate goals and on-ground action widening, warns UN panel

There is increasing evidence of a widening gap between action taken and what is urgently needed to deal with climate change, a major scientific report released on Monday found.

These gaps are largest among lower-income populations, said the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body of experts convened by the United Nations, which stated that despite global efforts people and ecosystems who are least able to cope with climate change are being hit the hardest by it. “This report is a dire warning about the consequences of inaction,” said Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC in a press release.

IPCC Working Group II report, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability was approved on Sunday by 195 member governments of the IPCC, the organisation said. It said that in order to avoid mounting loss of life, biodiversity and infrastructure, ambitious, accelerated action is required to adapt to climate change, while rapid and deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions must be made in parallel.

“The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, a marine biologist in Germany who helped coordinate the report.

IPCC said that the world will face unavoidable multiple climate hazards over the next two decades with global warming of 1.5°C. Nonetheless, the Climate Resilient Development will become even more challenging at current and limited if global warming exceeds 1.5°C. It said that some regions will become impossible to sustain if global warming exceeds 2°C.

“Even temporarily exceeding this warming level will result in additional severe impacts, some of which will be irreversible. Risks for society will increase, including to infrastructure and low-lying coastal settlements,” IPCC said in a statement.

Signed by more than 100 countries, the Global Methane Pledge (GMP) promised to cut methane gas by at least 30 percent from 2020 levels by 2030. Many world leaders promised to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 °C compared with preindustrial levels.