The latest IPCC report doesn’t bring good news…

We now have the latest IPCC report – the “IPCC Sixth Assessment Report” (and here’s a Financial Times article – and here’s a Reuters piece). Here’s a note from Cary Krosinsky summarizing it:

What today’s IPCC report on implementation really says in a digestible soundbite:

1. We are at least 3 times underinvested in the low carbon energy transition (if not more) – this needs to be addressed ASAP

2. Not nearly enough is happening in the developing world on this including on a project basis (let alone on climate innovation/deployment of such innovation in the developing world)

3. There is enough capital in markets to address this (PS markets are worth roughly 500T USD in total across all asset classes) but reallocating that existing capital won’t be easy

Conclusion: as a result, actually, there isn’t enough capital or projects to fill this investment gap – more work is needed on identifying what the specific energy finance transition roadmap really needs to look like country by country, and most of all, where this capital will come from.

It won’t appear out of thin air – most of the value in markets is already invested. This will require global collaboration on creating new sources of capital through stimulus/P3 and/or a change to how we value currency (see the excellent book Ministry for the Future on one possible way forward for the next 30 years). If we need $50T over the next 20 years, it won’t just appear out of thin air.

Thanks for the reports, but this won’t happen through a bunch of climate scientists getting together and continuing to produce the same reports over and over (this one looks very similar to the one from 2014).

Here’s a note of criticism from Sasja Beslik:

A farse goes on…

Tense negotiations involving the US and China, the world’s biggest polluters, delayed a landmark UN report that concluded the narrow window to limit global warming will require the phase out of fossil fuels, an electrified energy system, carbon storage and lower methane emissions.

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions found that without immediate action the world was on track for a 3.2C rise in temperatures by the end of the century. The definitive report compiled by 278 scientists and 195 countries is the final in a series of three over the past year.

Political wrangling over the summary findings pushed the conclusion of the IPCC plenary on Friday well into Sunday night, as countries including the US, China, and Saudi Arabia disagreed over the text.

Also see this note from Arun Kelshiker…