At the opening of the 58th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that holds in Interlaken, Switzerland, from March 13 to 17, 2023, Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary, United Nations Climate Change, emphasises that the Synthesis Report will be a key input into the Global Stocktake
I said at COP27 that I will be doing things differently. A closer, more productive partnership with IPCC is one of the ways I hope to do this moving forward.
Your assessments are fundamental to the UNFCCC and the entire spectrum of processes tackling climate change. And your work over the past five years – the toughest and most ambitious in IPCC history – has transformed public understanding of climate change.
You have laid out the facts, risks and opportunities. Now the Synthesis Report pulls this historic scientific endeavour together.
It will be a key input into the Global Stocktake later this year.
We need this report for COP28 and all meetings worldwide over the next 9 months where climate must remain at the top of the agenda.
So, I urge you, government representatives to the IPCC: Work together in a collegial, productive manner this week to achieve a timely result. Don’t quibble over commas and phraseology. Focus on the main message, the magnitude of the problem we face.
The Global Stocktake this year is an opportunity for us to course correct. We already know what the report will tell us. And it’s not good enough. So, let’s draw a path from the clear messages that AR6 has given us.
The IPCC has demonstrated how human activities such as burning fossil fuels and changing the way we use land are changing our climate. You have left us in no doubt about the risks we face if we do nothing. And have illuminated the opportunities for action and the economics of solutions.
We know the costs of action – and of inaction. We know what technologies we need to upscale. We know the changes required to investment and financial flows.
We have options in all sectors to halve emissions or more by 2030, with the global economy continuing to grow. In order to keep 1.5 within reach we need deep and immediate emissions cuts across all sectors and regions.
We know what we have to do. Now we must boost political will to make that course correction possible.
The IPCC points to the path we can take beyond the Global Stocktake. Charting a course to 2030, we must close the action and support gaps, whilst building resilience.
So, I wish you a productive and fruitful session, finalising the Sixth Assessment cycle and providing the knowledge to policymakers to take the course we need to a sustainable and prosperous climate future.
