IPCC sounds another climate warning

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context

• Recently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a report in which it reviewed scientific evidence in the natural and social sciences as well as the economy.
• The IPCC came to the conclusion that climate change has already caused irreversible losses and damage to land, coastal and marine ecosystems and that these losses and damages are likely to continue in the future.
• As per report, if global average surface temperature rises by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, it warns of severe consequences for food supply, human health, biodiversity loss, and the integrity of the natural environment.

Key features of the report

• A series of urgent steps that global leaders must take are proposed by Working Group II, based on time frames for the near-term, mid-term, and long-term implications of climate change produced by average temperatures surpassing 1.5 degrees Celsius.
• The IPCC’s Working Group II study, titled “Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability,” is one of three expert publications that will contribute to the IPCC’s overall Assessment Report 6, which is scheduled to be released in September of next year.
• The results of one study were published last year. According to scientific estimates, between 3.3 and 3.6 billion people “live in environments that are particularly vulnerable to climate change.”
• Residents in coastal areas who are endangered by rising sea levels and extreme weather events such as cyclones and floods are included in this category. Naturally, India has numerous major coastal cities, like Mumbai and Chennai, that play key roles in the country’s manufacturing, exports, and services industries.
• The IPCC’s assessment indicates that a policy review is needed to assist these cities in adapting to climate change. As a result, IPCC’s judgments are categorised as having varying degrees of “very high confidence” to “low confidence,” depending on how strong the evidence is.
• Human impacts on habitat are one area in which the data provides ‘high confidence,’ according to the researchers. Environmental scientists have shown that “unsustainable use of natural resources, habitat fragmentation, and ecosystem degradation caused by pollution, both globally and within protected areas, enhance ecosystem sensitivity to climate change.” When taken as a whole, fewer than 15 percent of the world’s land, 21 percent of its freshwater, and 8 percent of its ocean are designated as protected areas.

Threats

• Climate change poses a challenge to food production, which is a crucial factor of human well-being and advancement.
• A comparison is made between agricultural development that contributes to food security and “unsustainable agricultural expansion, driven in part by unbalanced diets,” which the scientists describe as a stressor that increases ecosystem and human vulnerability, resulting in competition for land and water.
• There is a dire outlook for a world that warms by 2 degrees Celsius (or more), and the report states that if global warming continues to rise at its current rate until 2041-60, food security risks will “become more severe, leading to malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Central & South America, and Small Islands.” There are, however, adaption possibilities that should be considered as part of an inclusive strategy.
• Crop enhancement, agroforestry, community-based adaptation, farm and landscape diversity, and urban agriculture are all examples of methods for increasing food production. The principles of agroecology (a holistic approach that incorporates ecological and social concepts for sustainable agriculture), ecosystem-based management in fisheries and aquaculture, and the use of natural processes can all help to improve food security, nutrition, health, livelihoods, biodiversity, sustainability, and ecosystem services, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
• If global temperatures rise by only 1.5 degrees Celsius, between 3 and 14 percent of all species on the planet would become extinct, with disastrous consequences if temperatures rise by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. Likewise, ecological calamities will have an influence on the situation.

Are there any policy prescriptions?

• According to the research, between 2010 and 2020, human mortality from floods, droughts, and storms was 15 times greater in extremely susceptible regions than in places with very low susceptibility, which should serve as a warning.
• South Asia, along with South East Asia and East Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa, is a hotspot because it has the highest absolute numbers of people displaced by extreme weather, followed by South East Asia and East Asia.
• There are some recommendations for India. Hefty rainfall has risen over most of the Indian subcontinent; Chennai, as well as Chittagong, Dhaka and Mumbai, and other cities on the Gangetic Plain and the Delhi-Lahore corridor, are all expected to become major migration hotspots in the near future.
• Heat Health Action Plans, which incorporate early warning and response systems for excessive heat, are one type of corrective action that might be implemented.
• To address the threat of water-borne and food-borne disease in densely populated areas, measures such as
  • increasing access to potable water,
  • lowering the vulnerability of water and sanitation systems to flooding and extreme weather events, and
  • enhancing early warning systems are needed.
• The IPCC recommends that adaptation initiatives be integrated into institutional budget and policy planning, that legislative mechanisms be established, that monitoring and evaluation frameworks be established, and that recovery measures be implemented following catastrophes.
• Furthermore, the introduction of “behavioural incentives and economic instruments that address market failures, such as climate risk disclosure, inclusive and deliberative processes, strengthen adaptation actions by public and private actors,” according to the report, “will strengthen adaptation actions by public and private actors.”

Options for climate resilient development

• According to the IPCC’s estimate, the window of opportunity to limit the global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius is closing rapidly. In fact, there is already widespread agreement that, based on the current promises made by states who signed the Paris Agreement, this target is unachievable to achieve, and that the average temperature might climb by as much as 3°C, with potentially disastrous effects.
• Climate Resilient Development is the solution, and it would connect all approaches toward significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the establishment of mechanisms to absorb a significant portion of the CO2 stock in the atmosphere, and the raising of adequate climate financing for adaptation.
• According to the IPCC, the worldwide trend of urbanisation presents an urgent and crucial opportunity to enhance climate-resilient development in this area. Coastal cities and communities play a particularly crucial role in this process.
• What will not work, though, is urbanisation that is both energy-intensive and market-driven. The same cannot be said for insufficient and mismatched financial resources, as well as a mistaken emphasis on grey infrastructure rather than environmentally and socially responsible measures.
• Wrong policies in sectors like as housing, for example, might actually lock in maladaptation, which would have a disproportionate impact on impoverished populations. Poor land use regulations, compartmentalised approaches to health, ecological and social planning, and other factors all contribute to the lack of resilience in a society.
• According to the assessment, the remainder of the present decade is critical in directing the globe toward a low-carbon future.

The Hindu link-

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/ipcc-sounds-another-climate-warning/article65183951.ece#:~:text=Sounding%20a%20warning%2C%20the%20report,regions%20with%20very%20low%20vulnerability.

Question- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in a recently published report has given stringent warnings of risks associated with climate change and given policy prescriptions to counter it adverse effects. Elucidate.