climate crisis
Final consultation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Gloomy results expected
Heavier rains caused the river levels in Lower Saxony to rise in early February. Photo: Julian Stratenschulte/dpa
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In many parts of the world, climate change already has people’s backs against the wall. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change plans to present its final report this month.
The eagerly awaited inventory of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the consequences of global warming for nature and humans is likely to be bleak, according to the environmental organization WWF.
Climate protection expert Viviane Raddatz explained on Monday in Berlin that the researchers would come up with a sobering and unsparing assessment. “In many parts of the world, people and ecosystems already have their backs to the wall. And even on our own doorstep, summer droughts, flash floods, forest fires, heat waves and flood disasters have made the climate crisis more tangible than ever before,” she said. If the farewell to the climate-damaging energy sources coal, gas and oil is delayed even further, the world is threatened with “a devastating climate chaos” with ever more violent extreme weather events.
Top priority demanded for climate protection
Raddatz demanded that, in order to protect the basis of life, climate protection must have top priority from now on. “Means: Get out of coal, oil and gas – and as quickly as possible!” In order to get the international community on course here, Germany must also use its G7 presidency.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change begins this Monday in Geneva with the final consultation on its next inventory. It is about the consequences of climate change for nature, people and the environment and ways in which people can adapt. The report will be released on February 28th.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a UN body, which is why its publications are approved in advance by governments. The IPCC does not conduct its own research, but looks through studies that have been published over the years, in this case more than 34,000. Among the approximately 300 authors, 40 are from Germany. The co-leader of the IPCC working group is Hans-Otto Pörtner, marine biologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute.