As we enter another COP, with the world at 1.15°C of warming, it feels as though the hope of “keeping 1.5°C alive” is similarly dwindling. But we cannot give up hope – too much depends on it. As COP26 in Glasgow drew to a close, I said it had provided an important gateway to a 1.5°C world, but that we needed accelerated action to get there.
The twelve months since have been harsh ones. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the impacts on global energy prices have driven a cost-of-living crisis that is reverberating globally. The impacts of climate change have been continuing to take their toll on communities around the world. In the UK we experienced record heat with temperatures exceeding an incredible 40°C leading to estimates of over three thousand deaths, mostly the elderly. Devastating floods in Pakistan have left 10 million children in need of immediate life-saving support.
The IPCC has stated that impacts of climate change on extreme weather are now being felt in every region across the globe and that reaching 1.5°C would be devastating for people and nature. It has also made it clear that addressing climate change requires rapid, deep and in most cases immediate reductions in greenhouse gases in all sectors of the global economy.
But there is still time to act.
Countries must come together at COP27 and increase the ambition in their pledges of emissions reductions, and then translate those through to policies and actions that bring to a halt the rising levels of greenhouse gases.