The latest IPCC report predicts dire consequences of climate change for global agriculture

On March 20, 2023, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its 6th Assessment Report (AR6), which addresses the likelihood that current and planned climate change mitigation action will successfully keep global temperature increases below 1.5 degrees Celsius (C). , and the consequences of the likely development of climate change on the global economy. The greenhouse gas emissions data used in the analysis are from 2019 and do not reflect any changes in economic activity that have occurred due to the shutdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that have occurred around the world. The previous report (AR5) was issued in 2014, ahead of commitments made by 195 countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris Agreement, which was agreed in December 2015. The IPCC is an arm of the United Nations charged with developing scientific knowledge about climate change and its likely impact on the world in which we live. They recruit scientific experts from multiple relevant disciplines from around the world to regularly produce and collate peer-reviewed reports that reflect the latest credible research on how climate change is affecting the natural environment and human-made infrastructure, and the physical and economic consequences of these impacts. You can find the Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) for IPCC's sixth round of assessments here. Overall, the report says that to date, the planet has warmed by about 1.19 degrees C since the end of the 1st century due to the continued increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and that countries that are signatories to the Paris Agreement have not implemented policies that would get the planet on a path that would keep us below the crucial 1.5°C threshold. In fact, at our current rate of greenhouse gas emissions, the authors estimate that we will cumulatively exhaust the global carbon budget that would keep us below 1.5 degrees until about 2030, or less than a decade from now. To avoid the likely scenario of exceeding this 1.5°C target, governments will need to make immediate and deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors this decade. (STEPHANIE MERCIER)