Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Scientists met last week in Geneva, to try to work out how to save the world – but likely more meetings at exotic locations will be required.
OSLO (Reuters) – Scientists on Thursday set the outlines of a report on how to restrict global warming to a limit agreed last year by world leaders – even though the temperature threshold is at risk of being breached already.
The U.N.-led study, due to be published in 2018 as a guide for governments, will look into ways of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to cap the rise at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.
It will examine impacts of a 1.5C rise on vulnerable parts of the world including Greenland’s ice sheet and coral reefs.
Thelma Krug, a Brazilian scientist who led the four-day meeting in Geneva, said it will also cast the fight against climate change as part of a wider struggle to end poverty and ensure sustainable growth.
“Rapid changes are needed for (no rise above) 1.5C,” she told Reuters.
The Geneva meeting was scheduled at the meeting in Nairobi in April this year, at which it was agreed to select 70 experts to prepare a special report.
… The IPCC was invited to prepare this Special Report by the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris in December 2015. The Conference reached an agreement to limit the increase in global average temperature to well below 2ºC above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5ºC. The Special Report, which the IPCC agreed to produce at its last Session in April held in Nairobi, will provide an evaluation of the scientific state of knowledge of this topic in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty.
The report will be delivered in 2018, in time for a “facilitative dialogue” that will take place that year to take stock of progress under the Paris Agreement. …
I can’t find any of these meetings on the UNFCCC calendar, but I suppose when you have so many jetset climate events being scheduled, a gathering of a mere 70 climate scientists and assistants, or non UNFCC climate events such as the 2017 Boston US China Climate Summit, just don’t make it to the main list.
As for that effort to eradicate poverty – a good start might be to teach climate scientists how to use Skype.