Driving the news: The final installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) sixth assessment report amounts to scientists’s final warning issued when the world still has a chance to limit global warming’s severity to the Paris Agreement’s targets.
- By the time the next IPCC assessment report is issued in five to seven years, the report suggests thathuman actions may have rendered the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target, and possibly even its 2°C benchmark, infeasible.
- “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all,” the report’s summary for policy makers states.
Between the lines: The authors provide a new target for governments to aim for: cutting emissions 60% by 2035 compared to 2019 levels in order to have a chance of meeting the 1.5-degree target.
Yes, but: As the oil and gas industry made clear at an annual major energy industry conference in Houston earlier this month, major companies have no plans to move more aggressively on their fossil fuel transition plans.