IPCC report: WTF does it mean for our planet?

So the last, and potentially final, IPCC report came out yesterday and the science is clear.

If you don’t know what an IPCC report is, they are a publication of the latest data that has been collected by climate scientists. Monday’s report was a breakdown of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment cycle, the product of decades of research. The report itself highlights the underlying science behind climate change and is split up into three sections; the impacts of climate breakdown, and ways of tackling or reducing the problems we face, and then it’s brought together in a synthesis chapter. It’s a pretty big deal.

Have I read it? Nope. Let’s face it, science reports are mind-numbingly dull and dry, so I thought I would try and give you the highlights … so here goes!

Key takeaways:

We really need to acknowledge the impact of our actions on future generations, so we have to think 7 generations ahead of us and 7 generations after us.
It’s more than likely that we will exceed 1.5°c of global warming, the target setting the 2015 Paris Agreement, and so we need to invest in carbon dioxide capture tech that would hopefully bring the temperature of our planet a little bit more bearable. We are already on track to 2°c which will make our planet uninhabitable. This overshoot is risky as it tips the balance and could push us even further in the wrong direction, so we should be watching every slight increment of warming closely.
Whilst the report doesn’t explicitly say so, we don’t have a future if we keep investing in fossil fuels… obvs… so we must stop burning them up and transition into greener cleaner energy - it will be interesting to see what this means for the Willow and Rosebank projects.
The impact of our decisions now will echo thousands of years into the future. I’m not saying we all have to become vegans and walk everywhere but any little change we make does add up and makes a difference. The WWF Carbon Footprint Calculator is a good starting point to identify the changes you could make today for a better tomorrow.
The report is crystal clear about the challenges climate change presents us with to our wellbeing, health, food sources, water supply… and pretty much everything else we rely upon for our existence.
The more dangerous the conditions are the more likely biodiversity is to decline rapidly, with marine and tropical species at higher risk of extinction.
The synthesis of the report highlights that we are not doing enough to cut carbon emissions. So, time to wake up to stop this runaway train of climate disaster.
“There is a rapidly narrowing window of opportunity to enable climate-resilient development” -IPCC
We have solutions to adapt to the climate crisis, and they mitigate many of the problems we will face, what are we waiting for?