IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report

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Context: The second part of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report released.

IPCC’s Assessment Report:

The Assessment Reports, the first of which had come out in 1990, are the most comprehensive evaluations of the state of the earth’s climate.
This Geneva-based Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment reports gives the periodic status check that are most widely accepted scientific view of the state of the Earth’s climate.
Hundreds of experts go through every available piece of relevant, published scientific information to prepare a common understanding of the changing climate.
The four subsequent assessment reports, each thousands of pages long, came out in 1995, 2001, 2007 and 2015. These have formed the basis of the global response to climate change.
The fourth assessment report, which came out in 2007, won the IPCC the Nobel Peace Prize.
IPCC reports form the scientific basis on which countries across the world build their policy responses to climate change. These reports, on their own, are not policy prescriptive: They do not tell countries or governments what to do.
The First Assessment Report led to the setting up of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the umbrella agreement under which international negotiations on climate change take place every year.
The Second Assessment Report was the basis for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
The Fifth Assessment Report of 2014, guided the Paris Agreement.
- The Paris Agreement, seeks to keep the rise in global temperatures “well below” 2°C from pre-industrial times, while “pursuing efforts” to limit it to 1.5°C.

IPCC’s sixth Assessment Report:

The first part of the report was centred around the scientific basis of climate change.
The second part talks about climate change impacts, risks and vulnerabilities, and adaptation options.
The third and final part of the report will look into the possibilities of reducing emissions.

Key findings:

It has warned of multiple climate change-induced disasters in the next two decades even if strong action is taken to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gas emissions.
Over 3.5 billion people, over 45% of the global population, were living in areas highly vulnerable to climate change.
India as one of the vulnerable hotspots, with several regions and important cities facing very high risk of climate disasters such as flooding, sea-level rise and heat-waves.
For the first time, it has made an assessment of regional and sectoral impacts of climate change. It has included risks to, and vulnerabilities of, mega-cities around the world.
- For example, Mumbai is at high risk of sea-level rise and flooding, while Ahmedabad faces serious danger of heat-waves.
- Several cities, including Chennai, Bhubaneshwar, Patna and Lucknow, approaching dangerous levels of heat and humidity.
For the first time, the IPCC report has looked at the health impacts of climate change. It has found that climate change is increasing vector-borne and water-borne diseases. Deaths related to circulatory, respiratory, diabetic and infectious diseases are likely to increase with a rise in temperature.
It has found gaps in adaptation due to lack of funds and political commitment and absence of reliable information and a sense of urgency.