interview
As of: 03/19/2023 4:02 p.m
How is our earth doing? For years, scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have collected and evaluated data – the last part of their work will be published on Monday. The meteorologist Marotzke explains in an interview why the committee is important.
tageschau.de: Mr. Marotzke, the synthesis report on the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. The IPCC was founded in November 1988. Why is the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) needed?
Jochem Marotzke: So that governments know what to expect. In relation to man-made climate change, they need the knowledge base. In 1988 it was recognized that we must provide this knowledge base in a systematic way. Since then, the IPCC has been working to collate and assess knowledge about climate change.
tageschau.de: The synthesis report will be published on Monday. To put it bluntly, can this report be described as a summary of the reports from the three working groups that have already been published?
Marotzke: You could say that. This time I am not involved, but in the last progress report I was also involved in the synthesis report. At that time we tried to bring together the findings and the assessment of all three working groups on the most important topics. This gives you a completely different perspective on the subject.
I didn’t just look at it from the perspective of a climate physicist, but together with my colleagues I also looked at the consequences of climate change, how to avoid climate change and the measures that are already in place. In my opinion, through this joint view, the texts have gained even more, they have become better and, above all, more understandable. In this respect, the synthesis report introduces a completely new quality.
To person
Jochem Marotzke is a German climatologist, oceanographer and since 2003 Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg. He was the coordinating lead author of the chapter “Future world climate: scenario-based projections and information for the near future” in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.
The knowledge about climate change is there
tageschau.de: At the end of each report from the working groups there is a summary for the decision-makers. How important are these summaries?
Marotzke: These summaries are clearly the most important part of the IPCC reports. They condense our most important insights, the most important evaluations. In this respect, they are the core of what we have compiled. But they are also extremely important politically. There are annual climate conferences – at the end of last year in Egypt, at the end of this year in Dubai. At these climate conferences, what is in the summaries for decision-makers of the IPCC reports is accepted unchallenged as scientific knowledge and is no longer questioned. To put it bluntly: what is written in the summaries for decision-makers is scientific law. This is accepted as the truth in politics.
Jochem Marotzke, Director Max Planck Institute for Meteorology Hamburg, on the next status report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
tagesschau24 09:00 a.m., 17.3.2023
tageschau.de: Do you think decision makers are paying enough attention to these reports?
Marotzke: In almost every country in the world, the summary for decision-makers is the scientific basis for climate policy, and this also applies to Germany. There is no doubt that the federal government takes the IPCC reports as the scientific basis for its actions. But if you then ask the question: Does this knowledge also lead to action to the same extent? Then the answer is: No, not nearly enough.
For example, we see very clearly today that the world is not on track to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. That is what the Paris Climate Agreement laid down. This means that we see very clearly that what we know about climate protection and climate change is not directly and in some cases not even remotely implemented in government action or in social action. So there is a big gap between what we know should be done and what is actually happening.
Climate protection must remain realistic
tageschau.de: Writing an IPCC report takes about three to four years. As a writer, does it frustrate you when you see that not enough is actually happening?
Marotzke: This may come as a surprise, but it doesn’t frustrate me, because we have to be aware that scientific knowledge only plays a small part in making political decisions. Political decisions have to be negotiated every day, and, one can say unfortunately, but that’s the way it is, short-term interests, short-term crises come into play again and again. And it is the case that long-term decisions repeatedly suffer from the short-term constraints and necessities. In that sense, I’m also a realist when it comes to that. I don’t expect that what is recognized scientifically will now really be implemented immediately.
I don’t think that’s possible either, because there are other interests that stand in the way. In Germany, for example, we see the debate about phasing out coal. Of course, it would be better for climate protection if the coal phase-out came as soon as possible. But the fates of entire regions also depend on it, jobs depend on it. And then it would be very difficult to say that climate protection must now dominate everything and have absolute priority. That would be unrealistic to expect. And I don’t even think it’s legitimate. The Federal Constitutional Court made this very clear in its decision of 2021 that climate protection is also in competition with other legitimate constitutional goods. In this respect, one cannot expect that everything will now be subordinated to climate protection.
The IPCC currently has three working groups
Working Group I deals with the scientific causes of climate change. Meteorologist Marotzke explains that climate physics is decisive here – everything that has been observed in order to assess climate change over the past decades is summarized here. The statement in the current report: It is clear that human influence has caused warming of the atmosphere, ocean and land.
Working Group II deals with the vulnerability of socio-economic and natural systems to climate change and its consequences. It also describes ways in which people can adapt to climate change. According to Marotzke, this group is much more interdisciplinary. If you look at how climate change is affecting society and ecosystems, it is not just about what climate events are happening. The consequences of climate change then also depend on how well armed society is, how vulnerable it is and how resilient it is.
Working group III shows political, economic and technological options to mitigate man-made climate change. According to Marotzke, this working group is very strongly dominated by economists. This raises the question of what economically acceptable options there are for reducing climate change. For example, what are the economically attractive options for moving away from burning fossil fuels to generate electricity? In this working group, political decision-making processes are also examined and ethical questions come into play, such as the extent to which ethical and moral standards influence decisions.
tageschau.de: But does that mean that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is needed at all?
Marotzke: I am convinced that without the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Paris climate agreement of 2015 never would have happened. And I am also convinced that without the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, climate would not be the political issue it is today. In this respect, it is also not true that nothing happens. It’s political, a lot has happened politically and socially. Climate change is a mainstream political issue today. That would have been unthinkable 20 years ago and I cannot imagine that it would have happened without the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The interview was conducted by Anja Martini, science editor of tagesschau. It has been edited and abridged for the written version.