synthesis report climate change 2023

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Goddard institute for space studies, goddard space flight center sciences and exploration directorate earth sciences division, publication abstracts, lee et al. 2023.

Lee, H., K. Calvin, D. Dasgupta, G. Krinner, A. Mukherji, P. Thorne, C. Trisos, J. Romero, P. Aldunce, K. Barrett, G. Blanco, W.W.L. Cheung, S.L. Connors, F. Denton, A. Diongue-Niang, D. Dodman, M. Garschagen, O. Geden, B. Hayward, C. Jones, F. Jotzo, T. Krug, R. Lasco, J.-Y. Lee, V. Masson-Delmotte, M. Meinshausen, K. Mintenbeck, A. Mokssit, F.E.L. Otto, M. Pathak, A. Pirani, E. Poloczanska, H.-O. Pörtner, A. Revi, D.C. Roberts, J. Roy, A.C. Ruane , J. Skea, P.R. Shukla, R. Slade, A. Slangen, Y. Sokona, A.A. Sörensson, M. Tignor, D. van Vuuren, Y.-M. Wei, H. Winkler, P. Zhai, and Z. Zommers, 2023: Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, doi:10.59327/IPCC/AR6-9789291691647.001.

This Synthesis Report (SYR) of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) summarises the state of knowledge of climate change, its widespread impacts and risks, and climate change mitigation and adaptation, based on the peer-reviewed scientific, technical and socio-economic literature since the publication of the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) in 2014.

The assessment is undertaken within the context of the evolving international landscape, in particular, developments in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process, including the outcomes of the Kyoto Protocol and the adoption of the Paris Agreement. It reflects the increasing diversity of those involved in climate action.

This report integrates the main findings of the AR6 Working Group reports and the three AR6 Special Reports. It recognizes the interdependence of climate, ecosystems and biodiversity, and human societies; the value of diverse forms of knowledge; and the close linkages between climate change adaptation, mitigation, ecosystem health, human well-being and sustainable development. Building on multiple analytical frameworks, including those from the physical and social sciences, this report identifies opportunities for transformative action which are effective, feasible, just and equitable using concepts of systems transitions and resilient development pathways. Different regional classification schemes are used for physical, social and economic aspects, reflecting the underlying literature.

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10 Big Findings from the 2023 IPCC Report on Climate Change

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March 20 marked the release of the final installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) , an eight-year long undertaking from the world’s most authoritative scientific body on climate change. Drawing on the findings of 234 scientists on the  physical science of climate change , 270 scientists on  impacts, adaptation and vulnerability to climate change , and 278 scientists on  climate change mitigation , this  IPCC synthesis report  provides the most comprehensive, best available scientific assessment of climate change.

It also makes for grim reading. Across nearly 8,000 pages, the AR6 details the devastating consequences of rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions around the world — the destruction of homes, the loss of livelihoods and the fragmentation of communities, for example — as well as the increasingly dangerous and irreversible risks should we fail to change course.

But the IPCC also offers hope, highlighting pathways to avoid these intensifying risks. It identifies readily available, and in some cases, highly cost-effective actions that can be undertaken now to reduce GHG emissions, scale up carbon removal and build resilience. While the window to address the climate crisis is rapidly closing, the IPCC affirms that we can still secure a safe, livable future.

Here are 10 key findings you need to know:

1. Human-induced global warming of 1.1 degrees C has spurred changes to the Earth’s climate that are unprecedented in recent human history.

Already, with 1.1 degrees C (2 degrees F) of global temperature rise, changes to the climate system that are unparalleled over centuries to millennia are now occurring in every region of the world, from rising sea levels to more extreme weather events to rapidly disappearing sea ice.

Additional warming will increase the magnitude of these changes. Every 0.5 degree C (0.9 degrees F) of global temperature rise, for example, will cause clearly discernible increases in the frequency and severity of heat extremes, heavy rainfall events and regional droughts. Similarly, heatwaves that, on average, arose once every 10 years in a climate with little human influence will likely occur 4.1 times more frequently with 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) of warming, 5.6 times with 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) and 9.4 times with 4 degrees C (7.2 degrees F) — and the intensity of these heatwaves will also increase by 1.9 degrees C (3.4 degrees F), 2.6 degrees C (4.7 degrees F) and 5.1 degrees C (9.2 degrees F) respectively.

Rising global temperatures also heighten the probability of reaching dangerous tipping points in the climate system that, once crossed, can trigger self-amplifying feedbacks that further increase global warming, such as thawing permafrost or massive forest dieback. Setting such reinforcing feedbacks in motion can also lead to other substantial, abrupt and irreversible changes to the climate system. Should warming reach between 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) and 3 degrees C (5.4 degrees F), for example, the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets could melt almost completely and irreversibly over many thousands of years, causing sea levels to rise by several meters.

2. Climate impacts on people and ecosystems are more widespread and severe than expected, and future risks will escalate rapidly with every fraction of a degree of warming.

Described as an “an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership” by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, one of AR6’s most alarming conclusions is that adverse climate impacts are already more far-reaching and extreme than anticipated. About half of the global population currently contends with severe water scarcity for at least one month per year, while higher temperatures are enabling the spread of vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, West Nile virus and Lyme disease. Climate change has also slowed improvements in agricultural productivity in middle and low latitudes, with crop productivity growth shrinking by a third in Africa since 1961. And since 2008, extreme floods and storms have forced over 20 million people from their homes every year.

Every fraction of a degree of warming will intensify these threats, and even limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degree C is not safe for all. At this level of warming, for example, 950 million people across the world’s drylands will experience water stress, heat stress and desertification, while the share of the global population exposed to flooding will rise by 24%.

Similarly, overshooting 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F), even temporarily, will lead to much more severe, oftentimes irreversible impacts, from local species extinctions to the complete drowning of salt marshes to loss of human lives from increased heat stress. Limiting the magnitude and duration of overshooting 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F), then, will prove critical in ensuring a safe, livable future, as will holding warming to as close to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) or below as possible. Even if this temperature limit is exceeded by the end of the century, the imperative to rapidly curb GHG emissions to avoid higher levels of warming and associated impacts remains unchanged.

3. Adaptation measures can effectively build resilience, but more finance is needed to scale solutions.

Climate policies in at least 170 countries now consider adaptation, but in many nations, these efforts have yet to progress from planning to implementation. Measures to build resilience are still largely small-scale, reactive and incremental, with most focusing on immediate impacts or near-term risks. This disparity between today’s levels of adaptation and those required persists in large part due to limited finance. According to the IPCC, developing countries alone will need $127 billion per year by 2030 and $295 billion per year by 2050 to adapt to climate change. But funds for adaptation reached just $23 billion to $46 billion from 2017 to 2018, accounting for only 4% to 8% of tracked climate finance.

The good news is that the IPCC finds that, with sufficient support, proven and readily available adaptation solutions can build resilience to climate risks and, in many cases, simultaneously deliver broader sustainable development benefits.

Ecosystem-based adaptation, for example, can help communities adapt to impacts that are already devastating their lives and livelihoods, while also safeguarding biodiversity, improving health outcomes, bolstering food security, delivering economic benefits and enhancing carbon sequestration. Many ecosystem-based adaptation measures — including the protection, restoration and sustainable management of ecosystems, as well as more sustainable agricultural practices like integrating trees into farmlands and increasing crop diversity — can be implemented at relatively low costs today. Meaningful collaboration with Indigenous Peoples and local communities is critical to the success of this approach, as is ensuring that ecosystem-based adaptation strategies are designed to account for how future global temperature rise will impact ecosystems.

4. Some climate impacts are already so severe they cannot be adapted to, leading to losses and damages.

Around the world, highly vulnerable people and ecosystems are already struggling to adapt to climate change impacts. For some, these limits are “soft” — effective adaptation measures exist, but economic, political and social obstacles constrain implementation, such as lack of technical support or inadequate funding that does not reach the communities where it’s needed most. But in other regions, people and ecosystems already face or are fast approaching “hard” limits to adaptation, where climate impacts from 1.1 degrees C (2 degrees F) of global warming are becoming so frequent and severe that no existing adaptation strategies can fully avoid losses and damages. Coastal communities in the tropics, for example, have seen entire coral reef systems that once supported their livelihoods and food security experience widespread mortality, while rising sea levels have forced other low-lying neighborhoods to move to higher ground and abandon cultural sites. 

Whether grappling with soft or hard limits to adaptation, the result for vulnerable communities is oftentimes irreversible and devastating. Such losses and damages will only escalate as the world warms. Beyond 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) of global temperature rise, for example, regions reliant on snow and glacial melt will likely experience water shortages to which they cannot adapt. At 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F), the risk of concurrent maize production failures across important growing regions will rise dramatically. And above 3 degrees C (5.4 degrees F), dangerously high summertime heat will threaten the health of communities in parts of southern Europe.

Urgent action is needed to avert, minimize and address these losses and damages. At COP27, countries took a critical step forward by agreeing to establish funding arrangements for loss and damage, including a dedicated fund. While this represents  a historic breakthrough  in the climate negotiations, countries must now figure out the details of what these funding arrangements, as well as the new fund , will look like in practice — and it’s these details that will ultimately determine the adequacy, accessibility, additionality and predictability of these financial flows to those experiencing loss and damage.

5. Global GHG emissions peak before 2025 in 1.5 degrees C-aligned pathways.

The IPCC finds that there is a more than 50% chance that global temperature rise will reach or surpass 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) between 2021 and 2040 across studied scenarios, and under a high-emissions pathway, specifically, the world may hit this threshold even sooner — between 2018 and 2037. Global temperature rise in such a carbon-intensive scenario could also increase to 3.3 degrees C to 5.7 degrees C (5.9 degrees F to 10.3 degrees F) by 2100. To put this projected amount of warming into perspective, the last time global temperatures exceeded 2.5 degrees C (4.5 degrees F) above pre-industrial levels was more than 3 million years ago.

Changing course to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) — with no or limited overshoot — will instead require deep GHG emissions reductions in the near-term. In modelled pathways that limit global warming to this goal, GHG emissions peak immediately and before 2025 at the latest. They then drop rapidly, declining 43% by 2030 and 60% by 2035, relative to 2019 levels.

While there are some bright spots — the annual growth rate of GHG emissions slowed from an average of 2.1% per year between 2000 and 2009 to 1.3% per year between 2010 and 2019, for example — global progress in mitigating climate change remains woefully off track. GHG emissions have climbed steadily over the past decade, reaching 59 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) in 2019 — approximately 12% higher than in 2010 and 54% greater than in 1990.

Even if countries achieved their climate pledges (also known as nationally determined contributions or NDCs),  WRI research  finds that they would reduce GHG emissions by just 7% from 2019 levels by 2030, in contrast to the 43% associated with limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F). And while handful of countries have submitted  new or enhanced NDCs  since the IPCC’s cut-off date,  more recent analysis  that takes these submissions into account finds that these commitments collectively still fall short of closing this emissions gap.

6. The world must rapidly shift away from burning fossil fuels — the number one cause of the climate crisis.

In pathways limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) with no or limited overshoot just a net 510 GtCO2 can be emitted before carbon dioxide emissions reach net zero in the early 2050s. Yet future carbon dioxide emissions from existing and planned fossil fuel infrastructure alone could surpass that limit by 340 GtCO2, reaching 850 GtCO2.

A mix of strategies can help avoid  locking in  these emissions, including retiring existing fossil fuel infrastructure, canceling new projects, retrofitting fossil-fueled power plants with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies and scaling up renewable energy sources like solar and wind (which are now cheaper than fossil fuels in many regions).

In pathways that limit warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) — with no or limited overshoot — for example, global use of coal falls by 95% by 2050, oil declines by about 60% and gas by about 45%. These figures assume significant use of abatement technologies like CCS, and without them, these same pathways show much steeper declines by mid-century. Global use of coal without CCS, for example, is virtually phased out by 2050.

Although coal-fired power plants are starting to be retired across Europe and the United States, some multilateral development banks continue to invest in new coal capacity. Failure to change course risks stranding assets worth trillions of dollars.

7. We also need urgent, systemwide transformations to secure a net-zero, climate-resilient future.

While fossil fuels are the number one source of GHG emissions, deep emission cuts are necessary across all of society to combat the climate crisis. Power generation, buildings, industry, and transport are responsible for close to 80% of global emissions while agriculture, forestry and other land uses account for the remainder.

Take the  transport system , for instance. Drastically cutting emissions will require urban planning that minimizes the need for travel, as well as the build-out of shared, public and nonmotorized transport, such as rapid transit and bicycling in cities. Such a transformation will also entail increasing the supply of electric passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles and buses, coupled with wide-scale installation of rapid-charging infrastructure, investments in zero-carbon fuels for shipping and aviation and more.

Policy measures that make these changes less disruptive can help accelerate needed transitions, such as subsidizing zero-carbon technologies and taxing high-emissions technologies like fossil-fueled cars. Infrastructure design — like reallocating street space for sidewalks or bike lanes — can help people transition to lower-emissions lifestyles. It is important to note there are many co-benefits that accompany these transformations, too. Minimizing the number of passenger vehicles on the road, in this example, reduces harmful local air pollution and cuts traffic-related crashes and deaths.

Systems Change Lab  monitors, learns from and mobilizes action to achieve the far-reaching transformational shifts needed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C, halt biodiversity loss and build a just and equitable economy.

Transformative adaptation measures, too, are critical for securing a more prosperous future. The IPCC emphasizes the importance of ensuring that adaptation measures drive systemic change, cut across sectors and are distributed equitably across at-risk regions. The good news is that there are oftentimes strong synergies between transformational mitigation and adaptation. For example, in the global food system, climate-smart agriculture practices like shifting to  agroforestry  can improve resilience to climate impacts, while simultaneously advancing mitigation.  

8. Carbon removal is now essential to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C.

Deep decarbonization across all systems while building resilience won’t be enough to achieve global climate goals, though. The IPCC finds that all pathways that limit warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) — with no or limited overshoot — depend on some quantity of  carbon removal . These approaches encompass both natural solutions, such as sequestering and storing carbon in trees and soil, as well as more nascent technologies that pull carbon dioxide directly from the air.

Hover over each carbon removal approach to learn more:

Note: This figure includes carbon removal approaches mentioned in countries' long-term climate strategies as well as other leading proposed approaches. Note: The natural vs. technological categorization shown here is illustrative rather than definitive and will vary depending on how approaches are applied, particularly for carbon removal approaches in the ocean.

The amount of carbon removal required depends on how quickly we reduce GHG emissions across other systems and the extent to which climate targets are overshot, with estimates ranging from between 5 GtCO2 to 16 GtCO2 per year needed by mid-century.

All carbon removal approaches have merits and drawbacks. Reforestation, for instance, represents a readily available, relatively low-cost strategy that, when implemented appropriately, can deliver a wide range of benefits to communities. Yet the carbon stored within these ecosystems is also vulnerable to disturbances like wildfires, which may increase in frequency and severity with additional warming. And, while technologies like bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) may offer a more permanent solution, such approaches also risk displacing croplands, and in doing so, threatening food security. Responsibly researching, developing and deploying emerging carbon removal technologies, alongside existing natural approaches, will therefore require careful understanding of each solution’s unique benefits, costs and risks.

9. Climate finance for both mitigation and adaptation must increase dramatically this decade.

The IPCC finds that public and private finance flows for fossil fuels today far surpass those directed toward climate mitigation and adaptation. Thus, while annual public and private climate finance has risen by upwards of 60% since the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, much more is still required to achieve global climate change goals. For instance, climate finance will need to increase between 3 and 6 times by 2030 to achieve mitigation goals, alone.

This gap is widest in developing countries, particularly those already struggling with debt, poor credit ratings and economic burdens from the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent mitigation investments, for example, need to increase by at least sixfold in Southeast Asia and developing countries in the Pacific, fivefold in Africa and fourteenfold in the Middle East by 2030 to hold warming below 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F). And across sectors, this shortfall is most pronounced for agriculture, forestry and other land use, where recent financial flows are 10 to 31 times below what is required to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goals.

Finance for adaptation, as well as loss and damage, will also need to rise dramatically. Developing countries, for example, will need $127 billion per year by 2030 and $295 billion per year by 2050. While AR6 does not assess countries’ needs for finance to avert, minimize and address losses and damages,  recent estimates  suggest that they will be substantial in the coming decades. Current funds for both fall well below estimated needs, with the highest estimates of adaptation finance totaling under $50 billion per year.

10. Climate change — as well as our collective efforts to adapt to and mitigate it — will exacerbate inequity should we fail to ensure a just transition.  

Households with incomes in the top 10%, including a relatively large share in developed countries, emit upwards of 45% of the world's GHGs, while those families earning in the bottom 50% account for 15% at most. Yet the effects of climate change already — and will continue to — hit poorer, historically marginalized communities the hardest.

Today, between 3.3 billion and 3.6 billion people live in countries that are highly vulnerable to climate impacts, with global hotspots concentrated in the Arctic, Central and South America, Small Island Developing states, South Asia and much of sub-Saharan Africa. Across many countries in these regions, conflict, existing inequalities and development challenges (e.g., poverty and limited access to basic services like clean water) not only heighten sensitivity to climate hazards, but also limit communities’ capacity to adapt.  Mortality from storms, floods and droughts, for instance, was 15 times higher in countries with high vulnerability to climate change than in those with very low vulnerability from 2010 to 2020.

At the same time, efforts to mitigate climate change also risk disruptive changes and exacerbating inequity. Retiring coal-fired power plants, for instance, may displace workers, harm local economies and reconfigure the social fabric of communities, while inappropriately implemented efforts to halt deforestation could heighten poverty and intensify food insecurity. And certain climate policies, such as  carbon taxes  that raise the cost of emissions-intensive goods like gasoline, can also prove to be regressive, absent of efforts to recycle the revenues raised from these taxes back into programs that benefit low-income communities.

Fortunately, the IPCC identifies a range of measures that can support a just transition and help ensure that no one is left behind as the world moves toward a net-zero-emissions, climate-resilient future. Reconfiguring social protection programs (e.g., cash transfers, public works programs and social safety nets) to include adaptation, for example, can reduce communities’ vulnerability to a wide range of future climate impacts, while strengthening justice and equity. Such programs are particularly effective when paired with efforts to expand access to infrastructure and basic services.

Similarly, policymakers can design mitigation strategies to better distribute the costs and benefits of reducing GHG emissions. Governments can pair efforts to phase out coal-fired electricity generation, for instance, with subsidized job retraining programs that support workers in developing the skills needed to secure new, high-quality jobs. Or, in another example, officials can couple policy interventions dedicated to expanding access to public transit with interventions to improve access to nearby, affordable housing.

Across both mitigation and adaptation measures, inclusive, transparent and participatory decision-making processes will play a central role in ensuring a just transition. More specifically, these forums can help cultivate public trust, deepen public support for transformative climate action and avoid unintended consequences.

Looking Ahead

The IPCC’s AR6 makes clear that risks of inaction on climate are immense and the way ahead requires change at a scale not seen before. However, this report also serves as a reminder that we have never had more information about the gravity of the climate emergency and its cascading impacts — or about what needs to be done to reduce intensifying risks.

Limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) is still possible, but only if we act immediately. As the IPCC makes clear, the world needs to peak GHG emissions before 2025 at the very latest, nearly halve GHG emissions by 2030 and reach net-zero CO2 emissions around mid-century, while also ensuring a just and equitable transition. We’ll also need an all-hands-on-deck approach to guarantee that communities experiencing increasingly harmful impacts of the climate crisis have the resources they need to adapt to this new world. Governments, the private sector, civil society and individuals must all step up to keep the future we desire in sight. A narrow window of opportunity is still open, but there’s not one second to waste.

Note: In addition to showcasing findings from the IPCC’s AR6 Synthesis Report, this article also draws on previous articles detailing the IPCC’s findings on  the physical science of climate change ,  impacts, adaption and vulnerability ,  and  climate change mitigation .

Relevant Work

6 takeaways from the 2022 ipcc climate change mitigation report, 6 big findings from the ipcc 2022 report on climate impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, 5 big findings from the ipcc’s 2021 climate report, 8 things you need to know about the ipcc 1.5˚c report.

Join us on March 23 for a high-level webinar featuring IPCC authors, government representatives and leading carbon removal experts to discuss how carbon removal is a critical tool in our toolbox to address the climate crisis.

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A liveable future for all is possible, if we take urgent climate action: flagship UN report

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A major UN “report of reports” from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), outlines the many options that can be taken now, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to human-caused climate change.

The study, “Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report”, released on Monday following a week-long IPCC session in Interlaken, brings into sharp focus the losses and damages experienced now, and expected to continue into the future, which are hitting the most vulnerable people and ecosystems especially hard.

#IPCC #ClimateChange 2023: Synthesis Report "is a survival guide for humanity," says @‌UN SG @‌antonioguterres in the IPCC press conference today. Follow live 👉 https://t.co/hd6OPJrPkk https://t.co/lUGJtAyLFl IPCC IPCC_CH March 20, 2023

Temperatures have already risen to 1.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a consequence of more than a century of burning fossil fuels, as well as unequal and unsustainable energy and land use. This has resulted in more frequent and intense extreme weather events that have caused increasingly dangerous impacts on nature and people in every region of the world.

Climate-driven food and water insecurity is expected to grow with increased warming: when the risks combine with other adverse events, such as pandemics or conflicts, they become even more difficult to manage.

Time is short, but there is a clear path forward

If temperatures are to be kept to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, deep, rapid, and sustained greenhouse gas emissions reductions will be needed in all sectors this decade, the reports states. Emissions need to go down now , and be cut by almost half by 2030, if this goal has any chance of being achieved.

The solution proposed by the IPCC is “ climate resilient development ,” which involves integrating measures to adapt to climate change with actions to reduce or avoid greenhouse gas emissions in ways that provide wider benefits.

Examples include access to clean energy, low-carbon electrification, the promotion of zero and low carbon transport, and improved air quality: the economic benefits for people’s health from air quality improvements alone would be roughly the same, or possibly even larger, than the costs of reducing or avoiding emissions

“The greatest gains in wellbeing could come from prioritizing climate risk reduction for low-income and marginalized communities , including people living in informal settlements,” said Christopher Trisos, one of the report’s authors. “Accelerated climate action will only come about if there is a many-fold increase in finance. Insufficient and misaligned finance is holding back progress.”

Governments are key

The power of governments to reduce barriers to lowering greenhouse gas emissions, through public funding and clear signals to investors, and scaling up tried and tested policy measures, is emphasized in the report.

Changes in the food sector, electricity, transport, industry, buildings, and land-use are highlighted as important ways to cut emissions, as well as moves to low-carbon lifestyles, which would improve health and wellbeing.

“ Transformational changes are more likely to succeed where there is trust, where everyone works together to prioritize risk reduction, and where benefits and burdens are shared equitably,” said IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee.

“This Synthesis Report underscores the urgency of taking more ambitious action and shows that, if we act now, we can still secure a liveable sustainable future for all.”

UN chief announces plan to speed up progress

In a video message released on Monday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres described the report as a “ how-to guide to defuse the climate time-bomb .”

Climate action is needed on all fronts: “everything, everywhere, all at once,” he declared, in a reference to this year’s Best Film Academy Award winner.

The UN chief has proposed to the G20 group of highly developed economies a “ Climate Solidarity Pact ,” in which all big emitters would make extra efforts to cut emissions, and wealthier countries would mobilize financial and technical resources to support emerging economies in a common effort to ensure that global temperatures do not rise by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Mr. Guterres announced that he is presenting a plan to boost efforts to achieve the Pact through an Acceleration Agenda, which involves leaders of developed countries committing to reaching net zero as close as possible to 2040, and developing countries as close as possible to 2050.

The Agenda calls for an end to coal, net-zero electricity generation by 2035 for all developed countries and 2040 for the rest of the world, and a stop to all licensing or funding of new oil and gas, and any expansion of existing oil and gas reserves.

These measures, continued Mr. Guterres, must accompany safeguards for the most vulnerable communities , scaling up finance and capacities for adaptation and loss and damage, and promoting reforms to ensure Multilateral Development Banks provide more grants and loans, and fully mobilize private finance.

Looking ahead to the upcoming UN climate conference, due to be held in Dubai from 30 November to 12 December, Mr. Guterres said that he expects all G20 leaders to have committed to ambitious new economy-wide nationally determined contributions encompassing all greenhouse gases, and indicating their absolute emissions cuts targets for 2035 and 2040.

Journey to net-zero ‘picks up pace’

Achim Steiner, Administrator, of the UN Development Programme ( UNDP ) pointed to signs that the journey to net-zero is picking up pace as the world looks to the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference or COP28 in the United Arab Emirates.

“That includes the Inflation Reduction Act in the U.S., described ‘ the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis ’ and the European Union’s latest Green Deal Industrial Plan, a strategy to make the bloc the home of clean technology and green jobs,” he said.

“Now is the time for an era of co-investment in bold solutions . As the narrow window of opportunity to stop climate change rapidly closes, the choices that governments, the private sector, and communities now make -- or do not make – will go down in history.”

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Statement on the ‘Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report’

I welcome the Synthesis Report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who have been a leading voice on the danger posed by the runaway climate crisis.

The growing severity and frequency of climate-related disasters is a matter of survival for the most climate-vulnerable countries. As the Report highlights, climate change is impacting food security, agricultural production and causing severe water scarcity for at least half of the world’s population.

Humanity is on the edge. But, as the IPCC Report makes clear, if we take urgent action now, we can prevent widespread death and destruction and secure a livable future. For this reason, today, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres has set out an all-hands-on-deck Acceleration Agenda “to massively fast-track climate efforts by every country and every sector and on every timeframe.” Deepening emission cuts is an essential pillar of this, alongside scaling up action on adaptation to climate change and against losses and damages.

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction calls on UN Member States to heed the warnings of the report with accelerated action, especially on climate justice to protect people in highly vulnerable regions who have contributed the least to the crises. When adaptation, disaster risk management, climate services and social safety nets are implemented across sectors, they make an enormous difference. The report highlights progress to date is often fragmented – now is the time to speed up and comprehensively deploy the tools at our disposal.

Specifically, through the UN Secretary-General’s Early Warnings for All initiative, we have a chance to protect every person, everywhere with inclusive and multi-hazard early warning systems by the year 2027. The IPCC report once again asserts that investments in early warnings saves lives - funding this initiative would not only help reduce disaster mortality by at least a factor of eight, but would also help reduce disaster related economic losses.

The High-Level Meeting on the Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework in May must be a moment where leaders commit to accelerating action on disaster resilience. We must switch the focus from picking up the pieces after climate disasters to preventing them from manifesting in the first place. We need climate resilient development – inclusive governance that embeds finance and actions across governance levels, sectors and timeframes. G20 countries must deliver on commitments on adaptation finance to achieve this.

Finally, closing the adaptation gaps and tackling the growing evidence of maladaptation requires us to better integrate climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. We must build on the progress made at COP27 to fully stand up and operationalize the Santiago network to provide developing countries with the technical assistance they need to avert, minimize and address losses and damages.

This includes providing countries with the assistance they need to understand and act on the confluence of climate, water, and disaster risks in a comprehensive way.

The disasters triggered by the growing climate-related hazards threaten to undo decades of development gains and push millions back to poverty. We have the power to stop these hazards from becoming disasters, we can aim for a world with Zero Climate Disasters, but only if we act now.

ABOUT UNDRR

UNDRR works closely with policymakers and partners to implement the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, the global blueprint for reducing disaster risks and losses.   In May, government leaders will gather in the UN Headquarters in New York, for the Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework co-chaired by the Governments of Australia and Indonesia to adopt a political declaration setting out action to accelerate action on disaster resilience.

For more information visit www.undrr.org , please contact the UNDRR Media Team: Omar Amach ([email protected]) and Rosalind Cook ([email protected]).

Editors' recommendations

• Midterm review of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030)
• A world with zero climate disasters needs early warnings for all
• Climate change 2023: Synthesis report summary for policymakers

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What is the IPCC AR6 synthesis report and why does it matter?

Summary report by world’s leading climate scientists sets out actions to stave off climate breakdown

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What is the IPCC AR6 synthesis report?

The fourth and final instalment of the sixth assessment report (AR6) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , the body of the world’s leading climate scientists, is the synthesis report, so called because it draws together the key findings of the preceding three main sections. Together, they make a comprehensive review of global knowledge of the climate.

The first three sections covered the physical science of the climate crisis, including observations and projections of global heating, the impacts of the climate crisis and how to adapt to them, and ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They were published in August 2021, February and April 2022 respectively.

The synthesis report also includes three other shorter IPCC reports published since 2018, on the impacts of global heating of more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, climate change and land , and climate change and the oceans and cryosphere (the ice caps and glaciers).

What will the key findings be?

There is no new science in the synthesis report, just a recap of the main findings of the previous publications. Those include warnings that the world was approaching “irreversible” levels of global heating, with catastrophic impacts rapidly becoming inevitable ; and that it was “now or never” to take drastic action to avoid disaster.

Much of the synthesis report is likely to focus on the future, setting out the possible policies and actions that will stave off the worst ravages of climate breakdown and warning of the impacts of further heating.

If the main findings have already been published, why is this report needed?

Its purpose is to reduce the thousands of pages of science to a shorter format, which is further condensed into a “summary for policymakers”, to provide scientific underpinning for global climate action. It is written by scientists but haggled over by representatives of the UN’s nearly 200 governments, so some argue it is subject to watering down by regimes that do not like its messages .

The report is supposed to inform the next UN climate summit, Cop28 , which will be hosted by the United Arab Emirates in Dubai from 30 November. There, nations’ progress on cutting greenhouse gas emissions since the Paris climate agreement of 2015 will be assessed. It is certain to find that governments are well off track on their emissions-cutting goals.

Will this report change anything?

This is the sixth IPCC report since the body was set up in 1988, with each comprehensive assessment taking roughly six to eight years to compile. As the reports have grown in size and urgency, so have global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2018, the IPCC warned that emissions must be halved by 2030, compared with 2010 levels, to have a good chance of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C. Yet emissions continue to climb. Last year, they rose by a little under 1% , according to the International Energy Agency. That leaves a rapidly diminishing “carbon budget” for the world to stay within the IPCC’s advised limits.

What should governments do?

Reduce emissions sharply and give up fossil fuels, through investments in renewable energy and other low-carbon technologies, increase energy efficiency, rethink agriculture and restore forests and degraded natural landscapes. It may also be necessary to develop technologies that suck carbon dioxide from the air, called “direct air capture” , or explore other means of “climate repair” .

When is the next IPCC report?

Not until about 2030. That means AR6 is effectively the last IPCC report while it is still feasible – only just – to stay within 1.5C.

Now that the impacts of the climate crisis are highly visible, and the underlying science well understood , some argue that the reporting cycles should be shortened, so that policymakers can receive clearer scientific advice throughout this crucial decade.

The IPCC can also be ordered to compile shorter reports on specific subjects, in between its mammoth comprehensive assessments. The increasingly urgent question of what to do if the world overshoots 1.5C of heating could well be a candidate for such treatment.

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CLIMATE CHANGE 2023 Synthesis Report

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Statement by the UNDP Administrator on the IPCC Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report

March 20, 2023.

Achim Steiner

UNDP Administrator

As extreme weather hits with increasing ferocity – including devastating droughts, floods, and heatwaves -- the fingerprint of climate change is evident in every corner of the globe. There can be no doubt that the health of people and planet hinges on decisive political action now. That is the stark message underpinning the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations (UN) body for assessing the science related to climate change, which has provided the most comprehensive assessment of climate change in the past nine years.

Yet the Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report is not all gloom. It outlines how feasible, effective, and low-cost options for climate mitigation and adaptation are already at the disposal of countries across the world. For instance, that includes widespread electrification from clean energy sources, energy and materials efficiency, and the restoration of forests and other ecosystems. It also calls for an increased emphasis on reducing fluorinated gases -- human-made gases used in a range of industrial applications -- to drive down greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that contribute to climate change.

The science is clear that we can keep 1.5C alive with sound, evidence-based policy-making. I echo the call of the UN Secretary-General for the Acceleration Agenda and for immediate, strong, and sustained reductions in GHG emissions to reach global net zero by 2050. Indeed, the adverse impacts of climate change will increase with every fraction of a degree. 

Crucially, high-income countries must extend the promised means including finance, debt relief, and partnerships to developing countries to address climate change and development as co-investments , based on the recognition that only collective action by our global community will be sufficient. That includes developed countries finally delivering on the long overdue promise of extending at least $100 billion per year in climate finance to developing countries. 

Climate change is deeply unjust. Over three billion people -- including some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities who have historically contributed the least to the current climate crisis -- are disproportionally experiencing its worst effects. It is also holding back their efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development  Goals . Yet developing countries are demonstrating that decisive climate action is possible. Through the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) partnerships with countries and communities across the world, we are witnessing visionary leadership. For instance, Bhutan, Viet Nam, and India are leading on the adoption of electric vehicles. Kenya and Uruguay are now running on 90% renewable energy sources. And Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries are notably taking far-reaching climate action despite a constrained fiscal space and a  debt crisis . 

There are signs that the journey to net-zero is picking up pace as the world looks to the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference or  COP28 in the United Arab Emirates. That includes the Inflation Reduction Act in the U.S.,  described “the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis” and the European Union’s latest  Green Deal Industrial Plan , a strategy to  make the bloc the home of clean technology and green jobs . 

Now is the time for an era of co-investment in bold solutions. As the narrow window of opportunity to stop climate change rapidly closes, the choices that governments, the private sector, and communities now make -- or do not make – will go down in history. 

Achim Steiner, Administrator, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

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Climate change 2023: Synthesis Report Summary for Policymakers

This Synthesis Report (SYR) of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) summarises the state of knowledge of climate change, its widespread impacts and risks, and climate change mitigation and adaptation. It integrates the main findings of the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) based on contributions from the three Working Groups, and the three Special Reports. The summary for Policymakers (SPM) is structured in three parts: SPM.A Current Status and Trends, SPM.B Future Climate Change, Risks, and Long-Term Responses, and SPM.C Responses in the Near Term. This report recognizes the interdependence of climate, ecosystems and biodiversity, and human societies; the value of diverse forms of knowledge; and the close linkages between climate change adaptation, mitigation, ecosystem health, human well-being and sustainable development, and reflects the increasing diversity of actors involved in climate action.

The report highlights that widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred. Human-caused climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. This has led to widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people (high confidence). Vulnerable communities who have historically contributed the least to current climate change are disproportionately affected. Approximately 3.3–3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change. Human and ecosystem vulnerability are interdependent. Regions and people with considerable development constraints have high vulnerability to climatic hazards. Increasing weather and climate extreme events have exposed 27 millions of people to acute food insecurity and reduced water security, with the largest adverse impacts observed in many locations and/or communities in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Least-Developped Countries (LDCs), Small Islands and the Arctic, and globally for Indigenous Peoples, small-scale food producers and low-income 30 households. Between 2010 and 2020, human mortality from floods, droughts and storms was 15 times higher in highly vulnerable regions, compared to regions with very low vulnerability.

Editors' recommendations

• Provisional state of the global climate in 2022
• Observed impacts, future risks, and adaptation solutions: Highlights from the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II report
• Climate change 2022: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability
• Climate and disaster risk finance in the IPCC sixth assessment report

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