In the news
OVERSHOOT OUTLOOK: A report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) warned that global warming is certain to breach the Paris 1.5C limit and stressed the importance of limiting “overshoot” and eventually bringing global temperatures back down, reported the New York Times. The report stated that “even temporary exceedance of 1.5C will leave irreversible losses”, noted Euractiv. The outlet quoted UNEP director Inger Andersen, who reiterated that the 1.5C limit “is still the goal…but now, we need to approach it differently – from above”. Andersen said the path outlined in the report implied “rapid and deep cuts” to emissions and pursuing “net-negative emissions”, the outlet added.
REPORT ROW: There is “growing unease” with how Climate Action Network-International (CAN-International), the world’s “most influential” coalition of climate NGOs, is navigating a rift between governments involving the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), reported Climate Home News. Some climate activists are “increasingly disappointed by CAN’s silence” in a standoff over whether the IPCC’s forthcoming assessment report should be finished in time to inform the next UN global stocktake, the outlet said. The pushback has come from China, Kenya, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia, it added. The "unprecedented stand-off” will come to a head at an IPCC meeting in Addis Ababa in October, wrote Financial Times business columnist Pilita Clark.
ASSESSMENT AMENDMENT: The Trump administration is seeking to revise the fifth US national climate assessment, published in 2023, to “recast worst-case climate scenarios as implausible”, reported the Los Angeles Times. In a notice of a "proposed amendment”, the US Global Change Research Program said it “would clarify the interpretation and federal use” of scenarios of very high emissions, such as RCP8.5. The authors of the report were not consulted, noted the newspaper. Writing on the Climate Brink substack, climate scientist Prof Andrew Dessler outlined why removing RCP8.5 from the assessment “would be a serious mistake”. In other news, the next US “Arctic report card” will go ahead with support from the American Geophysical Union following the loss of government funding.
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