“The longer you wait (to tackle climate change) the harder and the more expensive it gets” said Professor Jim Skea, Imperial College, London, co-Chair of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group III (Mitigation) at an EIB Institute seminar. “The sooner we act, the easier and the cheaper it will be to reach a given temperature goal,” as set by the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate by which 195 countries adopted the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate deal, he added.

Policymakers have asked IPCC, the leading international body for the assessment of climate change, to provide policy relevant information addressing the aims of the Agreement limiting global warming to well below 2°C. Among the measures IPCC recommended are a more efficient use of energy, greater use of low-carbon and no-carbon energy, improved carbon sinks, and lifestyle and behavioural changes.

Finance, mentioned for the first time in IPCC 5th Assessment Report, will play an important role as “limiting temperature increase will require considerably different patterns of investment.” In its 6th Assessment Report IPCC will focus on “transformation pathways to meet global warming reduction targets and on their social, financial, technological and sectoral regional implications”, he concluded.

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