CAN Letter to the IPCC WGIII Focal Points

19th March February 2022

Dear IPCC Focal Points,

Climate Action Network International (CAN) is the world’s largest network of over 1500 civil society organisations from over 130 countries, working together to fight the climate crisis.

As civil society observers to various multilateral climate and other intergovernmental fora, CAN has a long history of engagement with and support of the IPCC, as observers to the IPCC negotiations, through the involvement of various CAN scientists as reviewers and authors in IPCC reports and by providing science-based civil society perspectives to the IPCC.

At this moment in the climate emergency, the IPCC’s work on clean energy, technology, financing and policies represented by the Working Group III is more important than ever in bringing together the latest scientific evidence on climate change solutions that can inform policy making at the national and international levels and provide the public with clarity and credible evidence on the scale of the policy and investments needed. CAN stands for science-led climate policy both in the international context like the UNFCCC, the UN SDGs, CBD and in national legislation and policy.

The upcoming plenary by the IPCC WG III, between 21 March and 1 April, to conclude the Summary For Policymakers in the AR6 cycle is extremely critical.

CAN respects the negotiations by governments in the forthcoming IPCC meetings and will play our role as constructive civil society observers as we have done so previously. We will uphold and amplify the credibility of the process and the findings from the IPCC report in all our public advocacy and communications.

However, the guidelines for observer participation have been altered from earlier IPCC meetings. This worrying deviation in procedure means that observers for the first time are not allowed to speak in contact groups, nor attend huddles. To further diminish observer participation, in the event that just one country opposes, observers have to leave the Contact Group. This is civil society’s shrinking space. Many of us do remember the physical meetings the IPCC had over the last decades. There was never a problem. Civil society was contributing constructively in both Contact Groups and Huddles. Please, delegates and governments, reinstate this participatory right of an intergovernmental process. 

Climate Action Network asks you to consider the principles stated below, which we believe are fundamental to delivering a robust and useful Summary for Policymakers that can inform and spur governments to take rapid and far-reaching GHG reductions  in the near and long term in all countries and all emitting sectors in strong accordance with equity and a Just Transition. 

The points below reflect the concerns and hopes of the civil society represented by CAN to make the report relevant to a broader public and to emphasize its importance as a critical tool for much stronger and urgent political action by governments nationally and internationally to halt runaway climate change.

Therefore, in line with the recent science, including the recent IPCC WG I and WG II reports, and building on earlier IPCC Special Reports on limiting warming to 1.5°C, Land Use and Climate Change, and Oceans and the Cryosphere, CAN sets out the following expectations:

• To remain the most authoritative, scientific voice and moral institution on climate issues across all nations and including the recent findings of WG I and WG II, CAN calls on the IPCC to strongly and proactively manifest the policy-relevant findings for not overstepping 1.5°C by the end of century and the associated carbon budget as the decisive survival baseline for recommended mitigation actions. That requires a cut of CO2 emissions by about 50% by 2030 based on a 2021 baseline as shown by the IPCC 1.5° C report in 2018 (45% CO2 reduction with a 2010 baseline).

• Furthermore, CAN calls on the IPCC Focal Points to ensure that the SPM is overall policy-relevant in the context of the Paris Agreement objectives, including Article 4.1 according to which Parties aim achieve “a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removes by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century, on the basis of equity and in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty.”

• IPCC Working Group I and II showed that any linear increment in global temperature is very likely to cause an exponential increase and the danger of irreversible climate impacts. Any likely temperature overshoots between now and 2100 needs to be only short term and accompanied by precautionary actions with even deeper mitigation.

• CAN supports the IPCC to include in its analysis for necessary deep decarbonization and mitigation policies the politically mandatory complex of (in)equality, fairness, and participatory national, regional, tailor-made Just Transition processes. CAN expects the IPCC further to support national Fair Shares of commitments by major polluters regarding mitigation, technology transfer and financing for poorer countries and practically in the context of historic responsibility for the atmospheric carbon legacy and present capability to act accordingly in line with climate justice.

• CAN supports the IPCC analysis that the basis of understanding tailor-made mitigation options in the context of regional, national and sectoral circumstances is based on the assessment of all net and gross GHG emissions by all sectors and regions during the last decades until today. In addition, the divergence and difference of economic development should be displayed, regionally, sectorally, financially, per-capita wise and in absolute terms taking into account equity in a 1.5°C trajectory.

• Last year the IEA Net Zero Emissions by 2050 (NZE) scenario (2021) took the IPCC 1.5°C (2018) findings and translated them for energy: There can be no new unabated coal plants or oil and gas fields approved for development; no new coal mines or mine extensions. Overall, the share of fossil fuels drops from almost four-fifths today to slightly over one-fifth by 2050. It is this kind of clear, policy-relevant messages the IPCC now needs to communicate to policymakers too. And should the IPCC findings be very different from those of the IEA, the reasons need to be clearly spelled out. For reference: The IEA pathway does not rely on offsets from outside the energy sector, and aims for low reliance on negative emission technologies.

• Based on climate science, CAN, however, goes further and calls on the IPCC to recognise a global agreement for a managed phase-out of existing operating fossil fuel reserves and all coal, oil and gas production in all nations worldwide in line with climate justice and equity. IPCC must acknowledge another landmark report last year, The Production Gap report by UNEP and partners, found that governments still plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than what would be consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C. This, too, reflects the kind of highly policy-relevant information and messaging the IPCC, too, needs to reflect in its summary for policymakers, especially in light of the “critical decade” messaging established by the WGI and WGII reports.

• CAN urges a strong focus by the IPCC on truly sustainable technology development and deployment in renewables and energy efficiency legislation, substantive increase in electrifying fuel-dependent sectors like transport and industry, energy infrastructure including storage, large and small grids, and hydrogen electrolysers based on renewables. These policies consist of about 80% of the needed actions to stay in a trajectory of a 1.5°C pathway. CAN calls on the governmental IPCC delegations to strongly object to the expansion and use of technologies like nuclear with its unresolved legacy of highly toxic waste and Solar Radiation Management, including technologies of injecting aerosols in the higher atmosphere. Governments should understand that “conventional” CCS for instance in the power sector, does not reduce atmospheric CO2 like CDR technologies might do, does not reduce air pollution and freshwater use. And CCS faces significant financial barriers which do not occur with renewables for instance.

• It is necessary to foster all approaches towards a Circular Economy. This will help to address GHG emissions, enhance crucial resource and energy savings through waste prevention, recycling, reuse, and developing new durable low-carbon materials for all industrial manufacturing sectors and products. A Circular Economy also offers the opportunity for integration of informal economic sectors such as waste pickers, who provide unrecognized and uncompensated environmental services.

• CAN supports the IPCC to acknowledge that sufficiency is needed by the global rich and middle classes to address wasteful over-consumption that compromises planetary health. Individual lifestyle changes and diet changes away from industrial food need to play an increasing role in reducing GHG emissions.

• The IPCC should further address the land use sector, by strongly supporting the plethora of benefits for nature, climate and people by protecting, conserving and restoring biodiversity- and carbon-rich ecosystems immediately, such as forests, mangroves, saltmarsh, savannahs and peatlands. The protection of pristine ecosystems remains particularly important. Managed ecosystems like agricultural fields and forests need to deploy high caution, low carbon technologies and longer harvest cycles (forestry) to increase carbon storage in soils and biomass.

• With enhanced global warming even under low emissions scenarios as shown in WG I, it is evident that additional CO2 and CH4 emissions will occur from “indirect” human-induced perturbations such as increased forest fires which we witnessed in the last few years particularly in North America, Brazil, Australia, Southern Europe and Russia. But also GHG emissions from continued melting of permafrost soils and thawing of shallow lakes in the Arctic fostering the release of methane clathrates. These GHG emissions, and likely growing exponentially with continued Global Warming, need to be increasingly considered by the IPCC in all future emissions and temperature scenarios as well as in the present carbon budgets. 

• Assessment of finance and investment requirements for global, regional, national and sectoral decarbonisation in line with 1.5°C, and in contrast external costs (not only carbon, but for instance health impacts) and value losses (biodiversity, land losses for low-lying Island nations, extreme events, sea level rise etc) of missing the threshold, should be documented by the IPCC. 

• For approaches on necessary Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), credible and sustainable real net-zero developments and interventions are crucial, supported by social and environmental safeguards.  Furthermore, it is of very high importance that policymakers are given the tools to understand the land-use, biodiversity and food security implications of different levels of CDR embedded in assessed pathways. The CDR focus must be on protection, conservation and restoration of biodiverse and carbon-rich ecosystems.  Large scale Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), afforestation based on monocultural systems and technologies that would prolong the fossil fuel industry’s lifeline with CCUS must be avoided.

• CAN supports the IPCC to ignore land-based carbon offsets with fossil fuels as a scientifically reliable, permanent mitigation measure. CAN calls on the IPCC Focal Points to ensure policymakers get clarity on the true scale and speed of fossil fuel emission reductions needed in pathways that don’t rely on offsetting fossil emissions with land-based carbon storage. CDR will be needed but CAN believes it should be reserved for residual non-fossil emissions, not for compensating for emissions that could have been avoided in the first place by not burning fossil fuels. 

• The links between food security and erratic weather, crosscutting with issues of fragile land tenure by subsistence farmers and concepts of agroecology versus large scale industrial agriculture, should be a focus of the SPM when addressing GHG emissions from agriculture. This is aggravated by scandalous food waste both in the pre- and post-harvest supply chains.

• The IPCC needs to emphasize the findings from its Special Report on Land and Climate Change (2019) that industrialized, intensive and meat-based agriculture is unsustainable and would force conversion of primary forests and other ecosystems towards agricultural use. This would manifest in large amounts of CO2 and non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions over the entire supply chain while imposing overwhelming pressure on limited land that could benefit from more biodiversity protection, sustainable agroecology and agroforestry purposes. 

• The IPCC should deliver the prospects for a useful carbon market/emissions trading design that does not rely on land-based offsets, is subject to binding, deep, ambitious and tailor-made GHG emissions targets in the same high polluting industrial sectors across the industries in nations, regions and internationally in a transparent and verifiable manner.

• Policymakers need clear figures by the IPCC to describe the overall economic impacts of climate change and including external costs from fossil fuels versus the economic and societal benefits, of health, culture, safe livelihoods, biodiversity by deep mitigation efforts – and in contrast, what are the costs, investments and benefits to act on adaptation and resilience building in comparison to lukewarm or non-action in the various mitigation scenarios. What are the unavoidable and avoidable financial damages and impacts on society and culture in the next decades based on the various mitigation scenarios.

• For developing international, national, regional and even local deep mitigation policies, programmes and projects in any country, CAN calls on policymakers to deploy best public participatory and inclusive practices and decision making processes. That includes rights-based approaches, protection of human and Indigenous Peoples rights, environmental integrity, biodiversity protection, gender, a Just Transition approach, intergenerational equity and the “polluters pay principle”.

• Last but not least, CAN supports the IPCC to reaffirm its earlier statements that only transformative actions and pathways will help manage clean and sustainable mitigation actions, in particular supporting poorer developing countries while curtailing growing climate impacts. These approaches will be much more effective if regional and national policies are enhanced by social security measures based on social justice principles, as IPCC had also recommended in its agreed WG II report.

With the best wishes,

Dr Stephan Singer (CAN I) & Dr Sindra Sharma (CAN I)

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Download file: http://WG-III-Letter-to-IPCC-Focal-Points-19th-March-2022.pdf