Rachel Rose Jackson, Director: Climate Research & Policy, Corporate Accountability on the release of the IPCC AR6 synthesis report:
“The science and urgency is unequivocal and deeply disturbing. Today’s report demands a last and final reckoning. It paints a clear picture of how urgently action is needed. How desperately we need a swift and just transition to renewables. How fossil fuels must stay in the ground. How emissions need to be rapidly cut to Real Zero. This said, the report should have actually named the solutions that will keep us below 1.5 instead of leaving the door open for an inadequate suite of industry-backed removals and dangerous distractions. The time to ‘offset’ our way out of climate change is past.
Breaching 1.5 degrees Celsius is not an option. Governments will be effectively signing millions of avoidable death warrants for those who contributed least to the crisis. World governments, especially in the Global North, need to stop passing off responsibility and firmly own up to doing their fair share to address climate change. Developing countries did prevail against efforts to water down principles of equity and fairness in the report. But it’s noteworthy that scenarios in the report continue to fail to take into account the fundamental principle of equity and fairness. The U.S. and other high-emitting countries must not be permitted to bend science to its convenience. Developed countries continue to try to divorce science from reality.
The days of dirty dealings with the fossil fuel industry must be a thing of the past.”
For further climate justice and Global South perspectives, please see this press release from our partners at Demand Climate Justice.
