IPCC 2018 Report | Latest Burning Issues

Table of Contents

UPSC 2014 PRELIMS

Consider the following statements regarding ‘Earth Hour’

It is an initiative of UNEP and UNESCO.
It is a movement in which the participants switch off the lights for one hour on a certain day every year.
It is a movement to raise the awareness about the climate change and the need to save the planet

Which of the statements given above is / are correct?

It’s a symbolic global initiative by World Wildlife Fund (WWF). So 1 is wrong, A and D eliminated.
Other two are correct as per the same report.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases its ‘special report’ on limiting global temperatures recently

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific and intergovernmental body under the auspices of the United Nations
It was first established in 1988 by two United Nations organizations, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and later endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly through Resolution 43/53.

won the Nobel Prize in 2007 he 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was shared, in equal parts, between the IPCC and Al Gore.

The IPCC does not carry out its own original research, nor does it do the work of monitoring climate or related phenomena itself.
The IPCC bases its assessment on the published literature, which includes peer-reviewed and non-peerreviewed sources.

Assessment Reports Year of Publication

First 1990

Second 1995

Third 2001

Fourth 2007

Fifth report in 2018 October

Previous Periodic Assessment Reports produced by the IPCC seemed to suggest that the impacts of climate change could be “irreversible” and “catastrophic” if the rise in temperature was allowed to go beyond the 2°C ceiling.
However, many small island states and the least developed nations asked that the goal should be to restrict the temperature rise to within 1.5°C from pre-industrial times.
This was because the predicted impact if the world became warmer by 2°C could potentially threaten the very existence of some of these states.

A 1.5°C target demanded much deeper emission cuts from the big emitters, which in turn required massive deployment of financial and technological resources.
The Paris Agreement sought to ‘hold’ the increase in global average temperature to “well below” 2°C, while it also promised to keep “pursuing efforts” to attain the 1.5°C target.
Incidentally, the global average temperature has already risen by more than 1°C from pre-industrial times.
At the current rate, the 1.5°C limit could be crossed as early as 2040.

The report predicts the possibility to keep the increase in global average temperatures to within 1.5 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial times.
The world would need to bring down its greenhouse gas to about half of its 2010 levels by 2030, and to net zero by about 2050.
As of now, the aim is to reduce greenhouse gases by only 20%, from 2010 levels, by the year 2030 and achieve a net-zero emission level by the year 2075.
Net-zero is achieved when the total emissions is balanced by the amount of absorption of carbon dioxide through natural sinks like forests, or removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through technological interventions.

The IPCC climate change report makes it clear that the world will witness greater sea level rise, higher frequency of droughts and floods, and heatwaves and countries like India with large populations dependent on the agricultural and fishery sectors, would be highly impacted

The US is the biggest obstacle to forming a global coalition to fight climate change. The world needs to unite against the obstructive approach of the US
Paris Agreement and UNFCCC cannot be the only way ahead to address climate change. The world needs a ‘Plan B’ to address climate change

University of East Anglia – Limiting global warming to 1.5°C could prevent around 3.3 million cases of dengue every year in Latin America and the Caribbean alone.
World Bank report on Climate Change and Health – Additional 150 million people could be at risk from malaria if the temperature was allowed to increase beyond 2°C.

The report points out that “climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth” are projected to increase with global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius and increase further with 2 degrees Celsius.
Thus all these will serve as a key scientific input in the upcoming Katowice Climate Change Conference in Poland, where every country should keep this report as a base and revise their targets accordingly.