World set to overshoot Paris warming target, says UN climate chief

The incoming head of the UN climate science agency said on Thursday the world would exceed the Paris deal warming target of 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, adding that states’ policies had not been ambitious enough. In an interview a day after being voted the next head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Britain’s Jim Skea said the organisation was “committed” to “at least a little bit of overshoot” of the long-term threshold from the 2015 Paris deal. “They (governments) have not put in place policies that are ambitious enough to allow the goals of the Paris agreement to be met. That is absolutely for sure,” he said via video link from Nairobi where he won a run-off against Brazil’s Thelma Krug. “We are, I think, committed to at least some degree of overshoot…,” he said. Ending fossil fuels for some sectors, like aviation and freight, was not realistic, he said, adding that this meant CO2 would need to be removed from the atmosphere in future. The 35-year-old UN body is responsible for assessing the latest climate change science through its authoritative reports. Interest in this election has been high as extreme heatwaves across China, Europe and North America have sparked fires and water shortages, bumping climate change up the political agenda. Skea, a sustainable energy professor who also heads Scotland’s Just Transition commission, said he had been personally surprised by the heatwaves that IPCC scientists have long warned would arrive. “The fact that such things are happening is in a sense not surprising. The speed with which it has come across us is and, unless we take further action to reduce emissions, we are going to see this actually getting worse,” he said, adding that he did not personally suffer from “existential climate anxiety” since he was focused on solutions. Skea also warned against the IPCC becoming an “advocacy group”, saying its strength lay in the rigour of its research and its ability to get all 195 member states’ buy-in for its reports which can take months. “I think we can (maintain IPCC’s authority) as long as we as long as we stick to our fundamental values of following science and trying to avoid any siren voices that take us towards advocacy because that, I think, would weaken us,” he said. Under outgoing chair Hoesung Lee, the IPCC’s focus has shifted from raising the alarm to solutions — work that Skea has helped lead as co-chair of the working group on mitigating global warming’s impacts. But he stopped short of fixing new IPCC priorities, saying this would be decided with the new bureau after elections are complete. He previously told reporters that overshoot issues needed to be explored further, citing “unknowns” about the possible unexpected effects of falling emissions in future. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.