Report Reveals Top 10 Climate Science Insights

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Credit: Steinar Melby

Key points:

  • A newly released annual report on the climate provides critical information for decision makers at upcoming climate conferences.
  • The report emphasizes the inevitability of overshooting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C global warming target.
  • It ultimately calls for an immediate, “rapid and managed” fossil fuel phase-out.

An annual report by global experts in social and natural sciences reveals the latest “10 New Insights in Climate Science.”

“The 10 New Insights in Climate Science report provides an essential tool for decision makers at a critical time in the climate calendar each year. Scientific findings from reports like these should inform the ambitious and evidence-based action plans needed in this critical decade of accelerated climate action,” said Simon Stiell, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary.

The list is as follows:

  1. Overshooting 1.5°C is fast becoming inevitable. Minimizing the magnitude and duration of overshoot is essential.
  2. A rapid and managed fossil fuel phase-out is required to stay within the Paris Agreement target range.
  3. Robust policies are critical to attain the scale needed for effective carbon dioxide removal (CDR).
  4. Over-reliance on natural carbon sinks is a risky strategy; their future contribution is uncertain.
  5. Joint governance is necessary to address the interlinked climate and biodiversity emergencies.
  6. Compound events amplify climate risks and increase their uncertainty.
  7. Mountain glacier loss is accelerating.
  8. Human immobility in areas with climate risks is increasing.
  9. New tools to operationalize justice enable more effective climate adaptation.
  10. Reforming food systems can contribute to just climate action. 

The 10 New Insights in Climate Science series, launched with the UNFCCC at the COPs since 2017, is a collaborative initiative of Future Earth, the Earth League and the World Climate Research Programme, synthesizing the latest developments in climate change research. This year’s report represents the collective efforts of 67 leading researchers from 24 countries.  

The insights of the report will be used as evidence for decision makers in business and policy, especially against the backdrop of the inaugural Global Stocktake at COP28.

"Science is clear. COP28 must be the global meeting when the world gets serious about phasing out fossil fuels,” said Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research.

 

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