{"id":30858,"date":"2022-04-08T00:01:46","date_gmt":"2022-04-08T04:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=30858"},"modified":"2022-04-08T12:00:18","modified_gmt":"2022-04-08T16:00:18","slug":"broken-promises-empty-pledges-leading-to-irreversible-climate-disaster-un-says-its-now-or-never","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2022\/04\/broken-promises-empty-pledges-leading-to-irreversible-climate-disaster-un-says-its-now-or-never\/","title":{"rendered":"Broken Promises, Empty Pledges Leading to Irreversible Climate Disaster: UN Says It’s Now or Never"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

(Beyond Pesticides<\/em>, April 8, 2022) \u201cThe jury has reached a verdict. And it is damning. This report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a litany of broken climate promises. It is a file of shame, cataloguing the empty pledges that put us firmly on track towards an unlivable world. We are on a fast track to climate disaster.\u201d These words came from United Nations Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres<\/a> in a statement responding to the latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report<\/a> released on April 4. As a Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog headline virtually shouted in October 2021, \u201cClimate Crisis, Soil, Pesticides, Fertilizers: Red alert! This is Not a Drill<\/a>!\u201d<\/p>\r\n

This IPCC report \u2014 Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change<\/em><\/a> \u2014 is the third and final part of the panel\u2019s latest review of climate science. It is informed by the work of thousands of scientists, and follows on the first two of the trio of reports that comprise the comprehensive Sixth Assessment Report<\/a>. The first, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> from the IPCC Working Group I, was released on August 9, 2021. The second, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> from Working Group II, was issued on February 28, 2022. (Readers: please note that these reports are very long, but that there are, for each, multiple [and perhaps more-digestible] downloadable documents that address specific aspects or sections.)<\/p>\r\n

As The Guardian<\/em> reports<\/a>, \u201cIPCC reports take about seven years to compile, making this [third report] potentially the last warning before the world is set irrevocably on a path to climate breakdown.\u201d The co-chair of Working Group III, which generated this final report, is Jim Skea, PhD, a professor at Imperial College London. His comment to The Guardian<\/em> was this: \u201cIt\u2019s now or never if we want to limit global warming to 1.5C. Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

The report itself indicates that the planet is nearly inevitably going to crash through that 1.5\u00b0C barrier \u2014 the degree of temperature increase (above pre-industrial levels) above which many impacts of climate breakdown will likely become irreversible. The report adds that it might be possible to bring temperatures down below that mark by the end of this century, but that achieving this could require carbon-removal (or \u201ccarbon capture\u201d) technologies that are currently unproven and, in any case, cannot be a substitute for immediate and large emissions reductions.<\/p>\r\n

According to The Guardian<\/em>\u2019s reporting<\/a>, Secretary-General Gutteres expanded on his charges of broken promises and empty pledges in saying that some governments and corporations, which may claim to be \u201con track\u201d to meet goals that would help limit temperature increase to the 1.5\u00b0C mark (agreed to in 2015\u2019s Paris Agreement) are outright lying. \u201cSome government and business leaders are saying one thing \u2014 but doing another. Simply put, they are lying. And the results will be catastrophic. This is a climate emergency.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

The Secretary-General\u2019s statement also noted<\/a> that participating countries left 2021\u2019s COP26 (the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) in Glasgow with new promises and commitments, but continued to ignore the elephant in the global living room. That behemoth is \u201cthe enormous, growing emissions gap. . . . The science is clear: to keep the 1.5\u00b0C limit . . . we need to cut global emissions by 45 per cent this decade. . . . But, current climate pledges would mean a 14 percent increase in emissions. And most major emitters are not taking the steps needed to fulfil even these inadequate promises. Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels. Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Among the findings in this third report,<\/a> which focuses on cutting greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), are these:<\/p>\r\n