Watch Now: Key Takeaways from IPCC Lead Author Benjamin Sovacool
Every 6 to 7 years, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calls on experts from around the world to evaluate cutting-edge scientific thinking about climate change, providing critical guidance on climate risks and how we can adapt to or prevent them. The IPCC’s latest “Sixth Assessment Report” (AR6) wrapped up in March with the release of its much-anticipated Synthesis Report—integrating the findings of all six IPCC climate reports.
IGS Director Benjamin Sovacool speaks about his contributions to the report series as a Lead Author for Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. He discusses key findings from this report related to equity and justice, energy systems, and transportation. These insights into opportunities for just transitions to a low-carbon economy touch on:
The importance of cities, civil society groups, and voluntary partnerships among industry to cut emissions
How past decisions about energy systems influence the future
Policy’s role in shaping the behavioral dynamics of smart transportation
WATCH NOW Research for People & Planet | Justice, Energy & Transport: Key Climate Mitigation Insights from the IPCC Report (March 31, 2023)
Dr. Sovacool's Key Takeaways | Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change
Technical Summary:
Cross-chapter text box on Just Transitions: “A Just Transition isn’t just about coal, and isn’t just about training and capacity building. Instead, a Just Transition is more broadly a set of principles, processes, and practices that aim to ensure that no people, workers, places, sectors, countries, or regions are left behind in the transition from a high-carbon to a low-carbon economy.”
Chapter 4: Mitigation and development pathways in the near- to mid-term:
Section on sub-national actors and accelerated decarbonization: “The level of ambition among these sub-national actors—cities, civil society groups, and voluntary partnerships among industry—is higher (in terms of emissions reductions) than nation states! That is, sub-national actors are pledging to cut emissions in an amount greater than all nations currently implementing NDCs under the Paris Accord.”
Section on equity and Just Transitions: “Equity and justice issues are as important as climate mitigation issues and sustainability issues.”
Chapter 6: Energy Systems:
Section on path dependence: “Path dependence isn’t only technological, it can also be political, institutional, and behavioral.”
Section on institutions and behavioral change: “Institutions are vital accelerators and enabling conditions for cutting emissions and responding to climate change.”
Chapter 10: Transport:
Section on electric vehicles (EVs): “EV deployment can be a good but also a bad—it can in some cases lead to greater emissions, more driving, more roads, and more environmental and social impacts. It thus needs to be strongly governed by policy.”