Photo courtesy of Tcktcktck partner ©Greenpeace/Jeremie Souteyrat
World Team Now welcomes the launch of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest report in Berlin today which shows that avoiding catastrophic climate change is still possible, but only with rapid and sustained cuts to carbon emissions.
The report points to the benefits of increasing the use of alternative and renewable energy for power and phasing out fossil fuel in the long run. In addition to highlighting the need to transform the energy system globally, the IPCC says other solutions to the climate crisis include using energy more efficiently, with a focus on: the transportation, and building sectors, with renewable energy and technology. Investing in the retrofits and transformation of these industries sectors will be a key.
The IPCC makes it clear that climate action is needed now, and that it is time for us to take responsibility using the wisdom to choose what is needed, affordable, and beneficial for us all. This report validates what many of us realize – that we have the solutions to the climate crisis, and it’s our job, and thus our leaders’ jobs, to be stewards of our collective environment, and use this wisdom from science, so humanity can live in better balance with our resources.
To keep temperature rise below 2 degrees C by 2100, substantial shifts in annual investment flows between 2010 and 2029 will be required. Specifically, investment in fossil fuels, both power plants and extraction, would need to decline by 30 billion USD per year between 2010 and 2029. At the same time, investment in renewable energy supply would need to rise by 147 billion USD.
The third installment of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5 WG#3) involves over 800 scientists synthesizing the latest findings in the field which raises pressure on government leaders to act as it has outlined how cutting pollution now will be cheaper and more effective.
The challenge is levels of climate change-causing carbon emissions will rise across the globe, so it’s clear that more needs to be done and faster, to accelerate the transition to alternative and renewable energy, ideally 100% renewable energy systems, along with owning the responsibility to protect the lungs of our planet, the rain forests, and the seas from acidification.
All around the world people are facing the real impacts of climate change.
The transition to renewable energy will provide massive benefits ranging from energy security, new jobs, good business and improved public health. Climate change is a global problem. Addressing it requires international cooperation together with effective local, national, and regional policies.
We, at World Team Now, will be looking to President Obama, and Secretary of State John Kerry, along with the rest of the world leaders, to commit to increasing climate action at the United Nations’ Secretary-General’s Climate Summit in September. Ideally, this will lay the groundwork for a strong global treaty that we visualize being signed at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference (UNFCCC COP 21).
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