Source: Why Is the IPCC Tiptoeing Around Fossil Fuels? | The New Republic
The full report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says we need to stop burning fossil fuels right now. But that reality was excluded from a summary for the people who need to hear it most: policymakers.
Between the year when Robert Pattinson starred in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and the year he starred in The Lighthouse, the planet emitted an amount of carbon dioxide that—if it’s emitted again—will likely push it to warm by 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). So in the time it takes another teen heartthrob to transform into a rakish indie darling, the world may have sped past the threshold between life and death for the people and places already bearing the brunt of the climate crisis. That’s one takeaway from the latest installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report, dealing with climate mitigation.
But there’s a distinction between what’s in the full, nearly 3,000-page report crafted from 18,000 peer-reviewed papers by the IPCC’s Working Group III and what made it into the 63-page Summary for Policymakers. Specifically, you’d be hard pressed to find direct language about the need to phase out coal, oil, and gas in the synopsis account, gruelingly edited by government representatives during the longest approval plenary in IPCC history.
The full report paints a stark picture of the consequences of continued fossil fuel use: “If existing fossil-fuel infrastructure would continue to be operated as historically, they would entail CO2 emissions exceeding the carbon budget for 1.5°C.” Authors add that 30, 50, and 80 percent of proven oil, gas, and coal reserves (respectively) must remain unburned to limit warming to two degrees Celsius, and “significantly more” to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Reaching that goal, they add, would entail closing coal- and gas-fired power plants 30 years ahead of schedule. The report cites a 2018 study finding that even if every pipeline currently planned were canceled, one-fifth of existing fossil fueled generation capacity would still need to be shut down, as well.
The Summary for Policymakers includes some references to that. Limiting warming to two degrees, it notes, could wipe out between $1 and $4 trillion worth of fossil fuel assets by 2050 and “significantly more” to meet a 1.5 degree goal. Either “will leave a substantial amount of fossil fuels unburned and could strand considerable fossil fuel infrastructure,” per the summary. But the next sentence provides a convenient out: “Depending on its availability, [carbon capture and sequestration] could allow fossil fuels to be used longer, reducing stranded assets.” As in other sections, the Summary for Policymakers envisions a rosier picture for coal, oil, and gas than the report itself….
Worth deeper study. Goes into detail on the way negotiations are heavily weighted on the side of large , wealthy economies and negotiations take place almost entirely in English under the direction of mostly white males.
New ideas about economics do not get hear and several infeasible notions such as carbon capture and storage have outsize roles in the bargaining segments.