New research paints forlorn picture of global climate in 2050

Key quotes from the event

At COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt,  leading global experts from the natural and social sciences presented ten essential insights on climate change since 2021.

Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing. Global temperatures keep rising. And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible.

We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator,

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres emphasised at the beginning of the summit.

We should say clearly the rich countries - the top polluters - are the ones who are most to blame for endangering humanity,

Faustin-Archange Touadera, President of the Central African Republic stated.

Vulnerable countries are rightly concerned about loss and damage caused by other countries’ emissions. That’s certainly the reality for our African friends and partners. To them, I say I hear your call for greater solidarity. The African continent is on the frontline of a climate emergency it did not create,

Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the Netherlands said.

Unless we price carbon predictably on a trajectory that gets us at least to $75 average price per ton of carbon in 2030, we simply don’t create the incentive for businesses and consumers to shift,

said IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.

We must see the so-called ‘dash for gas’ for what it really is: a dash down a bridge to nowhere, leaving the countries of the world facing climate chaos and billions in stranded assets, especially here in Africa.

We have to move beyond the era of fossil fuel colonialism,

stated former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore.

Loss and damage

The yearly 10 New Insights in Climate Science report, which, as its name indicates, delivers a concise synthesis of the most pressing findings on climate change-related research to inform COP ('Conference of the Parties') negotiations, also highlighted the importance of addressing loss and damage, calling it an “urgent planetary imperative”.

“There are climate catastrophes and destruction, and my country ends up borrowing money from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to deal with the repercussions… Our countries cannot develop because of the costs of the climate crisis,” a young African activist said during one of the many protests that took place today at the Tonino Lamborghini International Conference Centre.

Our futures are being stolen from us! This is an injustice!

he declared.

‘Loss and damage’ refers to costs that are being incurred by countries that have contributed the least to climate change but are bearing the brunt of its impacts, such as sea-level rise and increasingly common extreme weather events.

Currently, developing countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and a good number of African nations, are forced to pay very high costs to recover from climate-induced disasters, and the youth believe that it is time for big polluters to pay their ecological debt.

Scientists underscored that losses and damages are already occurring and will increase significantly based on current trajectories models.

While many losses and damages can be calculated in monetary terms, there are also non-economic losses and damages that need to be better understood and accounted for,

the authors of the report warned.

They stressed that "a coordinated, global policy response to losses and damages (known by the capitalised Loss and Damage) is urgently needed."

Adaptation will not suffice

UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said "we are now clearly in the era of implementation, and that means action." The scientists find that the potential to adapt to climate change is not limitless. 

Rising sea levels capable of submerging coastal communities and extreme heat intolerable to the human body, are examples of ‘hard’ limits to our ability to adapt. They also highlight that over three billion people will inhabit ‘vulnerability hotspots’ - areas with the highest susceptibility to being adversely affected by climate-driven hazards - by 2050, double what it is today. 

Adaptation alone cannot keep up with the impacts of climate change, which are already worse than predicted. Adaptation actions are still crucial [...] but the potential to adapt to climate change is not limitless.

"And they will not prevent all losses and damage that we’ve seen. I therefore applaud Parties for getting Loss and Damage onto the agenda for COP27 and I look forward to a thorough discussion on this issue," said Stiell.

The scientists further outline that persistent dependence on fossil fuels exacerbates major vulnerabilities, notably for energy and food security, and that deep and swift mitigation to tackle the drivers of climate change is immediately necessary to avert and minimize future loss and damage. 

The less we mitigate, the more we have to adapt. So, investing in mitigation is a way of reducing the need to invest on adaptation and resilience. That means tabling stronger national climate action plans — and doing so now,

said Stiell.

These are the key topics covered in the report (full report here): 

1. Questioning the myth of endless adaptation
2. Vulnerability hotspots cluster in ‘regions at risk’
3. New threats on the horizon from climate-health interactions
4. Climate mobility: From evidence to anticipatory action
5. Human security requires climate security
6. Sustainable land use is essential to meeting climate targets
7. Private sustainable finance practices are failing to catalyse deep transitions
8. Loss and Damage: The urgent planetary imperative
9. Inclusive decision-making for climate-resilient development
10. Breaking down structural barriers and unsustainable lock-ins

Prof. Johan Rockström, co-chair of the Earth League, the Earth Commission and Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said: " As science advances, we have more evidence of massive costs, risks but also global benefits of reduced loss and damage, through an orderly safe landing of the world within the Paris climate range. To succeed requires global collaboration and speed at an unprecedented scale.”

The insights

1 - Questioning the myth of endless adaptation

• Limits to adaptation are being breached already in different places across the world. Climate adaptation will become increasingly difficult as we approach 1.5°C or even 2.0°C above pre-industrial temperatures.
• Existing adaptation efforts are falling short of adequately reducing risks from past, current and future climate change, leaving the most vulnerable particularly exposed to climate impacts.
• Adaptation cannot substitute for ambitious mitigation efforts. Even effective adaptation will not avoid all losses and damages, and new limits to adaptation can emerge in the shape of conflicts, pandemics and pre-existing development challenges. Deep and swift mitigation is critical to avoid widespread breaching of adaptation limits.

2 - Vulnerability hotspots cluster in ‘regions at risk’

• Approximately 1.6 billion people live in vulnerability hotspots, a number projected to double by 2050. Climate-driven hazard mortality is 15 times higher in hotspot countries than in the least-vulnerable countries.
• Vulnerability – the susceptibility to be adversely affected by climate-driven hazards – is a product of structural inequality in human–environmental systems. It clusters in major “regions at risk”: in parts of Central America, Asia and the Middle East, and in Africa across the Sahel, Central and East Africa.
• Communities in these regions at risk are increasingly exposed to climate change and climate-related hazards, where resilience (physical, ecological and socioeconomic) decreases with worsening levels of inequality, state fragility and poverty.
• Hotspots of vulnerability in the Arabian Peninsula and Central Asia are related to loss of habitats and biodiversity decline, reducing the ability of ecosystems to mitigate climate change and provide ecosystem services and resources, therefore affecting the adaptive capacity of marginalised groups.

3 - New threats on the horizon from climate-health interactions

• Compounding and cascading risks due to climate change are adversely impacting human, animal and environmental health.
• Climate change is already responsible for close to 40% of heat-related deaths and every inhabited continent is experiencing increased heat-related mortality.
• Wildfires are increasing in frequency due to the combination of higher temperatures and drought, bringing short- and long-term physical and mental health impacts.
• Outbreaks of infectious diseases are likely to increase due to climate change.

4 - Climate mobility: from evidence to anticipatory action

• Involuntary migration and displacement will increasingly occur due to climate change-related slow-onset impacts and the rising frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.
• Climate change and related impacts can also result in many people, particularly poor and marginalised communities, losing their capacity to adapt by moving away. However, others will choose to stay, despite facing increasing climate risks.
• Worldwide, there is a growing number of anticipatory humanitarian actions to assist climate-related mobility and minimise displacement – with early success stories.

5 - Human security requires climate security

• Human security depends on climate action.
• Climate change does not cause conflict; rather, it exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in human security (caused by governance and socioeconomic conditions), which can lead to violent conflict.
• By increasing vulnerabilities and instability, the human security impacts of climate change become national security concerns.
• Effective and timely mitigation and adaptation strategies are required to strengthen human security and, by extension, national security. These must be pursued in parallel with concerted efforts to provide for human security to reduce the risks of increasing violent conflict and promote peace.
• The Russian invasion of Ukraine has revealed significant problems in terms of food supply and stable access to energy at local, national and international scales that arise from a dependence on fossil fuels. These vulnerabilities erode human security.

6 - Sustainable land use is essential to meeting climate targets

• Agricultural intensification that is long-term sustainable is preferable to further expansion into natural areas, when proper policies are in place to limit increased land conversion. Efforts to increase food production through enhanced yields and system integration while minimising adverse ecological impacts can likewise do much to further food security.
• Land uses that achieve an optimal bundle of services (for climate solutions, food security and ecosystem integrity alike) depend on the climate pathway – the higher the degree of warming, the less likely the current assumptions about the capacity of land systems to deliver these co-benefits will apply.
• Integrated land management can provide climate solutions while also benefiting people and the environment; however, land-use changes entail trade-offs more often than mutual wins. Approaches that work to balance trade-offs identified by stakeholders are more likely to provide socially acceptable climate and conservation outcomes.

7 - Private sustainable finance practices are failing to catalyse deep transitions

• Financial markets are crucial for delivering net zero, especially in economic sectors with heavy climate impacts. However, private sector “sustainable finance” practices are not yet catalysing the profound and rapid transformations needed to meet climate targets.
• The large majority of today’s sustainable finance practices are designed to fit into the financial sector’s existing business models rather than to allocate capital in ways that would provide the most impact on combating climate change. The result is that a large share of sustainable finance practices to date do not have strong impacts for shifting capital; they are only moderate drivers of sustainability.
• Implementing and strengthening climate policy measures, such as carbon prices and taxes, minimum standards, and support measures for low-carbon solutions, remain most important for directing economic incentives towards climate solutions and thus shifting capital towards these solutions.
• Private sustainable finance practices must also advance rapidly so that they are better aligned with climate policy efforts and enhance those efforts. To this end, policymakers need to develop policies aimed directly at the financial sector that (a) significantly improve on the transparency of emissions embodied in investments and savings; and (b) ensure that capital flows become aligned with the Paris targets in ways that have real impacts on emissions and resilience in our economies.

8 - Loss and Damage: the urgent planetary imperative

• Losses and damages are already happening and will increase significantly on current trajectories, but rapid mitigation and effective adaptation can still prevent many of these.
• While many losses and damages can be calculated in monetary terms, there are also non-economic losses and damages that need to be better understood and accounted for.
• A coordinated, global policy response to losses and damages (known by the capitalised Loss and Damage) is urgently needed.

9 - Inclusive decision-making for climate-resilient development

• Climate-resilient development is built on societal choices that go beyond the formal decision-making of politicians and policymakers.
• Being inclusive and empowering in all forms of decision-making has been shown to lead to better and more just climate outcomes.
• Currently, the sort of "inclusive" decision-making being done is insufficient to meet the needs of either climate action or justice.

10 - Breaking down structural barriers and unsustainable lock-ins

• Mitigation strategies still remain insufficient to limit temperature increase to below 2°C.
• Social progress measured by gross domestic product (GDP) growth and affluence is among the major drivers of GHG emissions, ingraining a resource-intensive economy that is a significant barrier to climate change mitigation.
• Vested interests within this political and economic system entrench unsustainable lock-ins – such as behavioural norms geared towards status consumption, business models focused on ever-increasing production, weak or vague climate policies, and even the use of outright violence that benefits fossil fuel industries – across social norms, industry and economy.
• Costs of climate change driven by a fossil fuel-based energy system are readily externalised onto communities deprived of the collective agency to resist.
• Interventions across all structural barriers simultaneously to remove unsustainable lock-ins are crucial if we are to achieve true transformational change.

Cover photo: Getty Images