The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is planning to publish a new report with a date of April 4th that would put forward ways to mitigate climate change. This new report will be the third of three important reports from the IPCC issued over the past eight months.
The first two have looked at the causes and impacts of climate change. This third new report will be examining ways to tackle the crisis and will likely weigh up technologies to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
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According to an IPCC co-chair, it will look more closely at ways of removing CO2 that’s already in the atmosphere. Some carbon removal approaches could include tree planting, agriculture, or more advanced technological approaches like direct air capture that remove the CO2 already built up in the air.
“The report was scoped out to cover the full spectrum of carbon dioxide removal approaches, which vary absolutely hugely, and the carbon dioxide that is removed can end up in very different stores and in very different places. So it was within the scope of the report to cover the whole lot, basically,” said Prof Jim Skea, from Imperial College, London.
It is known by the scientific community that some of those carbon removal methods are controversial or used as ways to excuse not making major changes like substituting fossil fuels with clean energy sources.
Relevant: Latest IPCC Report Warns Of Unprecedented Risks Caused By Climate Change
Scientists highlight that the situation now is so serious that carbon dioxide removal will be needed in addition to major and rapid changes to energy generation rather than a substitute for them.
What will be published in two weeks for the policymakers is also a summary of calls to action. There will be delicate negotiations with government representatives from 195 countries on those calls to action that will work together with researchers to select their final text line by line.
In addition, the new IPCC climate change report will focus on responsible production and consumption and will explore what are the drivers of behavior change. With a view to the pandemic and the Russian/ Ukraine war, the scale of emissions cuts may also have to be revised upwards.
So far, it seems like the report examines the mitigation actions from the human race that could prevent the worst consequences of climate change. It will also likely highlight that we need to move quickly with those carbon removal activities and not use them as an excuse to delay any phase out of fossil fuels.
