Apr 13, 2014 - Berlin,
Germany, 13 April 2014 - The Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the group
of the world's leading climate change scientists
established by the UN General Assembly and
working under the auspices of the United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and
the World Meteorological Organization, has
just released in Berlin, after 6 years of
intensive work reviewing all available science,
its 2014 assessment on measures to mitigate
climate change.
Remarks By UNEP Chief
Scientist Jacqueline McGlade at the IPCC
Working Group III Approval Session -
Among its main findings is that the concentration
of Green House Gasses (GHGs)- gasses which
cause climate change - have grown more quickly
during the last decade that in each of the
previous three decades.
Globally, economic and population growth
continue to be the most important drivers
of increases in CO2 emissions from fossil
fuel combustion. The contribution of population
growth between 2000 and 2010 remained roughly
identical to the previous three decades,
while the contribution of economic growth
has risen sharply.
Scenarios show that
to have a likely chance of limiting the
increase in global mean temperature to two
degrees Celsius, means lowering global greenhouse
gas emissions by 40 to 70 per cent compared
with 2010 by mid-century, and to near-zero
by the end of this century.
The panel analyzed the
causes for this increase in the main economic
sectors: energy, transport, construction,
and building, industry, land use, agriculture
and forestry among others.
CO2 emissions from fossil
fuel combustion and industrial processes
contributed about 78 per cent of the total
GHG emission increase from 1970 to 2010,
with a similar percentage contribution for
the period 2000-2010.
About half of cumulative
anthropogenic CO2 emissions between 10000
and 2010 have occurred in 23 the last 40
years. Annual anthropogenic GHG emissions
have increased between 2000 and 2010, with
this increase arising directly from energy
supply (47 per cent), industry (30 per cent),
transport (11 per cent) and buildings (3
per cent). Accounting for indirect emissions
raises the contributions of the buildings
and industry sectors.
The panel analyzed different
scenarios for stabilizing or reducing emissions
in each of these sectors and made a number
of recommendations to policy makers on this
regard.
It concluded that without
additional efforts to reduce GHG emissions
beyond those in place today, emissions growth
is expected to persist, driven by growth
in global population and economic activities.
Baseline scenarios,
those without additional mitigation, result
in global mean surface temperature increases
in 2100 from 3.7 to 4.8°C compared to
pre-industrial levels (median values; the
range is 2.5°C to 7.8°C when including
climate uncertainty).
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General
and UNEP Executive Director, welcomed the
assessment and said: "UNEP congratulates
the IPCC for producing once again a masterpiece
of assessment and advice on how to address
climate change. Reading this last assessment,
the urgent need for making further progress
in greening our economies is clear. UNEP
stands ready to continue providing advice
and support to countries around the world
on how to design and implement policies
that will move us towards low-carbon economies
and societies."
