August 2021
by Hank Boerner – Chair & Chief Strategist – G&A Institute
Superstorms with drenching downpours. Wildfires consuming vast stretches of western-lands forest in the U.S. and parts of Europe. Hurricanes coming ashore in both Atlantic and Pacific Oceans with devastating effects, during and after the storm. Once-in-a-hundred-year weather occurrences happening last year and the year before and…
The signs of climate change are now everywhere and all at once. The careful analysis of what all of this means to the future of human life, flora and fauna, the land, the seas, our atmosphere, are being made abundantly clear.
We need to continue increasing our understanding of what is happening and what we have to do to meet the challenges of what President Joe Biden has positioned as “the climate crisis”.
The latest body of evidence comes to us now in summary form from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
This is the United Nations body organized in 1998 by the UN and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to analyze and assess the science information that the public sector needs at all levels, in all locations, to create and manage their climate-related policies. There are 195 organizational members of the IPCC — and literally thousands of scientists and experts who contribute to the organization’s work.
Many scientific papers are published each year by IPCC volunteers and a comprehensive summary is published from time-to-time (the “Synthesis Report”). The sixth assessment (AR6) will be published in 2022. The world’s scientists are not waiting for next year to publish grave warnings for humankind.
There are three parts to the ongoing efforts of the IPCC:
(1) Working Group I, on Physical Science of Climate Change;
(2) Working Group II, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability: and
(3) Working Group III, Mitigation of Climate Change.
There is also a Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (TFI).
These groups are busily contributing now to the planned publication of the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) next year. IPCC is sharing dramatic findings on an urgent basis right now to help broaden public understanding of the climate change crisis.
We are bringing you news and background of the Working Group summaries and other findings that IPCC is sharing. Warning: Reading the news and opinion and perspectives shared is scary stuff, indeed! And there will be more news and commentaries to come as we move toward the COP 26 climate change leaders’ gathering in November in Glasgow, Scotland.
The G&A Institute team has been sharing many research findings, news and commentaries about the growing dangers inherent in climate change since our founding in 2007.
Our G&A Sustainability Highlights newsletter is now well beyond its 500th issue, and has been content shared in the thousands to help broaden understanding about climate change issues.
This blog post is a brief but solid recap for you of the latest news centered on the IPCC summary (as we outlined in an August newsletter). Stay Tuned for more to come, and please contact us with any questions about what your company can be doing to prepare for the future.
Top Story/Stories
- IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report
- It’s Arrived: Our ‘Uh-Oh’ Moment on Climate Change (Source: Sustainable Brands)
- The Sixth Assessment Report: a timely reminder for urgent climate progress (Source: CDP)
- International report underscores urgent need for climate action before it is too late (Source: Ceres)
- U.N. releases blistering assessment on the state of climate change (Source: NBC News)
- 5 takeaways from the major new U.N. climate report (Source: The New York Times)
- The Hill’s Sustainability Report: UN climate report: Apocalypse maybe? (Source: The Hill)
- Fashion’s takeaways from the UN climate change report (Source: Vogue Business)