There is an ongoing scientific discussion around how researchers should use the latest generation of climate models that predict future temperatures and their impacts: the so-called “hot model problem”. Two experts explain why we must make a shift from model democracy to model meritocracy.
We have the technological solutions we need. The price of renewable energy is lower than ever. The cost of inaction is far greater than the economic impacts of the transition. Insights on media and expert opinions on the opportunities highlighted in the IPCC report on mitigation of climate change.
One message rings clear above all others: it’s now or never for tackling climate change. Headlines, editorials, tweets, webinars, podcasts and more reactions from around the world to the latest instalment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 assessment report (WGIII).
The European Union is at a crossroads: business as usual, a new era, or fragmentation and conflict. Drawing confidence and inspiration from its management of the COVID crisis, Europe must now face the inescapable challenge of shaping a future that deals with the global pandemic’s aftereffects, the climate crisis, and escalating political turmoil. The High-Level Group of academics reflects on the main economic and social challenges the European economy will face in the post-COVID environment.
A participatory approach is the foundation for building solutions that empower citizens, policymakers, experts, and non-experts to make informed decisions. Co-designing data visualizations that reflect the findings made with climate science is key to reach the right audiences and foster change. Data visualization explained by Angela Morelli, the information designer that contributed to the most recent Summaries for Policymakers published by the IPCC.
The United Nations’ latest climate report has brought media, experts and opinionists around the globe to reflect on the urgency of climate change, the irreversible consequences of our inaction and the different ways in which individual countries will be forced to adress adaptation challenges, climate change impacts and their own specific vulnerabilities.
Scenarios are not predictions. They are a construction of a future that looks at the consequences of given developments and actions. A future that is being sculpted by our current actions.
What is it that makes one statement more reliable than another and how can we claim that science has reached a consensus on any given issue? Increasingly, talk of climate change revolves around discussions of a “scientific consensus” and how this shapes our present and future understanding of climate issues and policymaking.
In the new IPCC report scientists have made more accurate and reliable assertions on the extent, causes and future of our changing climate. As the crucial COP26 in Glasgow approaches, their assessment of the physical science of climate change may well act as a much-needed wake-up call. “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land [and that] changes in the climate system have become larger in direct relation to increasing global warming,” reads the report.
Sustainable agriculture, adaptation plans and creativity are all needed to drive a high quality productive sector that considers scientific knowledge on climate change and sustainability. Italy can play an important role in a global context where, among others, food, eating habits, sustainable land use and the dialogue between science and society are crucial elements.
A new IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere claims that we still have time to avert some of the worst effects of climate change. Although painting a dire picture, which reveals the pervasive effects of global warming, the Report also highlights the significant benefits of limiting global warming by emphasising how lower emission scenarios will have reduced impacts on the wellbeing of oceans and the cryosphere.
The IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming tells us that, although the planet is getting hotter, it is still possible to remain within the 1.5 °C mark set out in the Paris Agreement. However, for this to be achieved nothing short of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 will suffice: policymakers are looking to decarbonise the economy.
