So good morning, ladies and gentlemen and people joining from UN Web TV stream and journalists joining this press conference from the Palais de Naciong in Geneva.
We welcome you to the launch of the United in Science 2021 report.
My name is Paul Edgerton, Chef de Cabinet of WMO and I'll be moderating this event today.
United in Science is a multi organisation **** level compilation of the latest climate science information and is published in advance of the UN General Assembly and brings **** level climate science information at a global level, so providing A unified assessment on the state of our Earth system.
This is actually the third edition of this report and the report covers greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere from WMO, global greenhouse emissions and budgets from the Global Carbon Project, Emissions gap from the United Nations Environment Programme, Global Climate in 2017 to 2021 and up to 2025 from the WMOUK Met Office.
Also, it provides highlights of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 6 Assessment Report, the Physical Science Basis, sea level rise and coastal impacts from the World Climate Research Programme and finally, also heat waves, fires and air pollution with collaboration with the World Health Organisation.
So first of all, this Prospect Conference, we're very privileged to hear a message from the United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, who will present his statement on the report.
We have reached the tipping point on the need for climate action.
The disruption to our climate and our planet is already worse than we thought and it is moving faster than predicted.
Yet we are far from meeting the goals of the five year old Paris Agreement.
This report shows just how far of course we are.
Is among the hottest on record.
We continue to destroy the things on which we depend for life on Earth.
Ice caps and glaciers continue to melt, sea level rise is accelerating, the ocean is dying and biodiversity is collapsing.
This year, fossil fuel emissions have bounced back to pre pandemic levels.
The Now's gas concentrations continue to rise to new record highs.
And the results are plain to see, affecting health, lives and livelihoods everywhere.
We now have five times the number of recorded weather disasters than we had in 1970 and they are 7 times more costly.
Even the most developed countries have become vulnerable.
Hurricane either recently cut power to over 1,000,000 people in New Orleans and New York City was paralysed by record-breaking rain that killed at least 50 people in the region.
Unprecedented floods devastated parts of Western Europe and an exceptional and dangerous heat wave killed hundreds in the northwest of United States and Western Canada.
These events would have been impossible without human caused climate change.
Costly fires, floods and extreme weather events are increasing everywhere.
These changes are just the beginning of worst to come.
Unless there are immediate, rapid and large scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we will be enabled to limit global heating to 1.5°C and the consequences will be catastrophic.
These reports by the United Nations and Global Scientific Partner Organisation is clear.
We really are out of time.
We must act now to prevent further irreversible damage.
COP 26 this November must mark that turning point.
By then we need all countries to commit to achieve net 0 emissions by the middle of this century and to present clear, credible long term strategies to get there.
We need all countries to present more ambitious and achievable nationally determined contributions that will together cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 compared to 2010 levels.
This report makes clear that our climate has already changed and the climate rated risks are increasingly increasing rapidly.
It is urgent that we step up efforts to protect people and their livelihoods, particularly in the most vulnerable countries that have been hit simultaneously by climate disruption, COVID-19 and crushing levels of depth.
This is why we must urgently secure a breakthrough on adaptation resilience so that vulnerable communities can manage these growing risks.
And that means adequate finance, beginning with developed countries delivering on their pledge to mobilise 100 billion U.S.
dollars annually for mitigation and adaptation in the developing world.
I expect all these issues to be addressed and resolved at COP 26.
We'd like to thank the United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres for that statement from the United in Science.
I'd like to introduce you now to Professor Petri Talas, who is the Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organisation, and he will give you a presentation on the United Science Report.
Key results Professor Talas.
So welcome also on my behalf and, and thanks to Secretary Senator Guterres for his words and, and he has been actually requesting us to provide these reports.
The first one was published 3 years ago when he organised **** level Climate Summit for the heads of states in New York attached to the General Assembly.
And thereafter we have had a habit to publish these reports on annual basis just before the General Assembly to motivate the threats of state who classically gather in New York to, to, to mitigate the climate, climate change.
And, and, and as Paul I get on said, this is a joint venture of, of several UN agencies and, and also Global Carbon Project and, and the UK met Met Office.
And I will now show you some slides where I will summarise what, what are the contents of this, this report?
Could I get the slides up please?
I don't see it here, by the way.
So, so we've I will summarise the findings of this report a little bit later.
But, but first, there was some thinking that because of this COVID lockdowns, we would have seen a positive development in, in real atmosphere.
But that's not the, the, the case I've been now.
So what, what happened last year?
Can I get the next slide, please?
So, so this is demonstrating how the emissions have been, carbon emissions have been evolving during the past past decades.
And you can see that there's been a fairly steady increase.
And last year we estimated that there was 5.6% drop in emissions.
And since the lifetime of carbon dioxide is so long with this one year's anomaly in emissions doesn't change the big picture.
We saw some improvements in air quality, the short lived gases, it's affecting air quality.
We, we, we saw positive evolution there.
But but now we have returned more or less back to the 2019 emission levels.
And here are some greenhouse gas measurements, carbon dioxide measurements first for the most recent years on the on the left hand side and you can see very steady increase.
And on the right hand side, you can see the whole old time series from the late 50s when, when US NOAA studied their measurements at Mauna Loa.
And this is what we measure at all of the stations because the very long lifetime of, of, of carbon, carbon dioxide.
So, so this, this short drop in emissions didn't change the big picture.
We should see such drops happening on annual basis to be successful in climate mitigation.
Next, please and, and, and the last five years period has been the warmest 5 year.
On record since since we started measurements in 1850 and on the map.
But here you can see where, where where we saw more than average warming and that's that's typically Arctic area.
Europe has been also exposed to higher increase of temperatures and and Asia in general.
Then we see some anomalies here, especially in in Southern Hemisphere ocean areas and there's also one anomaly South of Greenland and Iceland.
And that's related to the to the slowing down of so-called Gulf Stream, which is bringing warm air from Caribbean towards Europe.
But but overall warming in Europe and Arctic has been so, so massive that that we don't see a major impact of that at the European continent.
But in the ocean area that's that's happening and we have several centres worldwide which are estimating what has happened during the since 1850.
And you can see a couple of European centres here, few North American ones and and a Japanese one.
And depending how you calculate this, this warming so far, the range is from 1.06 decrease to 1.26° warming.
So about 1.5 to one 1.1 to 1 to 1.3 is the range of of warming so far.
In IPCC report which was published a few weeks ago, they they talked about 1.1.
But here we have also also data from the most recent years, which we're not included in the IPCC report.
And as Antonio Guterres said, we have started seeing more extreme events and, and of course we have also this natural variability in atmosphere.
So you, you, you, we cannot tell that everything that we observe is because of climate change.
But for example, these two events that we are shown on the screen, they have been clearly linked to climate change.
First, we had this temperature anomaly in, in, in Western Canada and the United States where we were up to 5015° warmer temperatures than normally.
And, and that led to record-breaking forest fires and, and, and major health problems, especially among elderly people.
And, and, and, and also this flooding event in, in Western Germany that was very unusual and LED also to almost 200 casualties.
And because of climate change, these kind of events that used to happen every 100 years, they may happen nowadays every 20 years and, and in the future even more often.
So the risk of these kind of events is growing because of climate change.
But we shouldn't explain all of this kind of variability with climate, Climate change factors next, please.
And if we compare this, what has happened during the past 100 years, that's, that's really very, very unusual.
We can go back with not measurements, but the indirect ways of estimating what has happened to temperatures.
We can go back 100,000 years and, and the last 100 years is, is, is clearly an anomaly in, in, in, in that time frame.
So, so we haven't seen such, such warming and such warm a century for the past 100,000 years.
And here, here, here I'm, I'm showing what has happened during the past 2000 years next, please.
And, and these changes, they are having also impacts on, on human health.
And we have learned that the, the frequency of heat waves is growing and, and, and, and, and especially people who have been casualties of this COVID pandemic, same type of people are also sensitive to changes in, in, in temperature patterns.
And these heat wave events cause mortality.
And, and especially these elderly and, and, and sick people who have died of COVID, they are also typically dying because of heat waves.
And, and on the map on the right hand side, you can see that, that we have, we have seen also an increase of, of, of, of forest fire risk.
And, and, and you can see lots of colour in Asia, in Africa and also in both both Americas and, and also in Russia.
And, and during the recent years we have seen record-breaking forest fires in Russia and also in Brazil and, and, and also in United States.
As as I already already said, next please and the sea level rise that will continue for, for on on a longer term basis.
The recent IPCC report showed that we could stop these these changes in the weather patterns, heat waves, drought events, flooding events and, and, and, and storm events by 2000 and 52,000 and 60 if you're successful with mitigation.
But certain parameters will continue to change also during the coming hundreds of years because we have already such **** concentrations of especially carbon dioxide in the in the atmosphere.
And that's why the sea level rise, melting of glaciers and melting of snow and ice will continue for for centuries.
And then here you can see that the estimates of sea level rise for for this century, they are higher than they used to be.
We estimate that it it the range is from .0 to .6 metres.
Besides the the the sea level rise which has been about 26 centimetres so far.
So altogether we, we are supposed to reach half metre to 1 metre by the end of this this century and, and, and, and, and then by two to 300 by the end of next century, we may get up to three metres more.
And this is an area where we have lots of uncertainty.
And the uncertainty is very much related to the fact that we don't know what's going to happen to the Antarctic glacier where we have the biggest mass of ice worldwide.
And, and in the worst case, we could see up to two metres sea level rise by the end of this century if the melting of, of the Antarctic glacier happens in a speedier, speedier manner.
The good news from the recent IPCC report is that that this worst scenario that we used to have in the previous reports, they are not very likely anymore.
So, so we, it seems that we can, we can somehow mitigate climate change, but, but so far, so far we haven't, we are not on a, on a track towards Paris agreement targets next, please.
And, and there's a likelihood that we would see, we would hit the lowest, the low limit of Paris agreement 1.5° during the coming five years.
And, and, and there's 40% chance that one year within the coming five years would be, would be already 1.5° warmer on temporary basis, on permanent basis.
That may happen happen much later.
And, and, and, and finally, I would like to say that that we are not yet on track towards the Paris 1.5 to 2° limits.
Although positive things have started to happen and and the political interest to mitigate climate change is clearly growing.
But to be successful in, in, in, in this effort, we have to start acting now.
We cannot wait for decades to act.
We have to start acting already doing this this decade.
And that's one of the challenges for the forthcoming COP 26 meeting to raise the ambition level and, and to be able to reach 1.5 to 2°, which would be the best for the welfare of, of, of mankind and, and our planet.
And here we are summarising the, the results of this report.
So, so, so we are, we, we have to raise the ambition level of mitigation.
And, and, and, and, and we have started seeing events which are, which have been unusual in the past that they're becoming more, more, more usual because of climate change.
And, and, and, and this anomaly in emissions last year is over.
And, and we are more or less back to the, the 2019 emission emission levels.
And, and, and, and, and this helped health case COVID doesn't have a very strong link to, to, to any weather patterns.
The only link that we have found is, is related to air pollution.
So the polluted areas have seen more, more mortality than other, other parts of the world.
And sea level rise has been accelerating.
And this will continue for, for centuries.
And, and, and, and there's a chance that we would hit the, the low limit of Paris agreement during the coming five years.
And, and that that's, that's 40% the chance for that.
This was all from from my side and I'm open for questions or comments from your side.
Thank you very much Professor Talas for the detailed presentation of United in Science in 2021.
And as we said at the beginning, this is a cooperation with several UN agencies and academic institutions.
And we just want to also thank the contributions of this report and also the lead team with Professor Jorge Luttabacher, who is the WMO Chief Scientist and also is joining on the on the Zoom link.
We're now going to ask for any questions from journalists on the press conference.
And could you please raise your hand if you would wish to ask for, for the floor?
So first of all, I'll go to the Swiss News Agency.
Yeah, thanks for taking my question.
Secretary General, you mentioned an increasing interest in climate action.
When you assess what you have heard or read so far from the different Member States, how do you assess the preparation for the Cup?
Does it seem satisfactory or or are you, aren't you confident on on what they might achieve?
Is there a need for even stronger preparation for the the gathering?
So, as, as I said, we have heard encouraging news, it seems that that quite many countries worldwide are aiming at becoming carbon neutral by 2050 or 2060, which is, which is the aim of, of China and, and, and the good news is that we also have both the technological and, and, and financial means means to be successful with climate mitigation and even even theoretical reach the low limit of Paris Agreement 1.55°.
But but what, what, what needs to happen is that we have to start acting, acting during this decade or so.
We cannot wait for several decades to, to act.
Otherwise we will lose, lose the chance to reach this Paris 1.5 to 2° limits.
And, and there's, there's going to be lots of pressure on countries that they would make commitments for the coming, coming 10 years to, to, to, to mitigate, have ambitious mitigation plans for until 2030.
So that's, that, that's our challenge.
And, and so far we haven't heard enough such commitments that we would, we would be heading towards, towards the Paris parish limits.
But but, but I would say that the the political interest to mitigate this is is higher than ever.
Just to remind you, if you want to ask the floor, please raise your hand on on the chat.
We're now going to Jamie Keaton from Associated Press.
Good morning, Professor Talas.
Sorry, I had some difficulty with this the other day.
I wanted to know if you could just be very specific.
Obviously this is a compilation of a lot of different science that has been out there already.
I'm just wondering in terms of the projections, what what specifically is new in this report compared to the IPCC report?
Or is it really just more of a, a re re re sort of assessing that that data?
And then the second question just has to do with what you just touched upon.
How optimistic are you that countries are going to be able to get their act together between now and 20-30 to help meet the Paris targets?
Yes, so, so IPCC reports, they are these main reports, they're published typically every seven years.
And, and, and and they are dealing with the peer reviewed literature which has been published in the in the in the peer reviewed journals during the past past years.
And, and, and, and in this report we are also including what we have observed during the recent years.
The IPCC report information is typically lagging couple, at least couple of years behind what's happening in real atmosphere.
And, and this in this report we are summarising what has happened in the real atmosphere.
And, and for example, we have estimated what has been the impact of emission drops during these these pandemic lockdowns.
We have also estimated what has been the contribution of climate change, the most recent disasters like the, like the forest fires in, in Canada and, and, and the USA and, and flooding event in, in, in, in, in Germany.
And, and then we have also estimated what is the likelihood that, that we would hit the, the lower limit of Paris, Paris agreement.
And, and, and then we have of course also information on, on greenhouse gases until, until this year.
And, and also information on, on, on temperature changes until, until this year, which which wasn't the case in IPCC report.
So, so that's, that's the thing.
And we are very much echoing the same message as as the IPCC report.
And, and, and there were some, some thinking that the, the COVID lockdown would have had positive impact on the real, in the real, real atmosphere, which is not, not the case.
And, and, and as has already said, the, the bottleneck of, of, of, of the COP 26, one of them is going to be how much we are, we are ready to start acting.
Already during this decade, there's been classically thinking that perhaps in the future, something may, may happen.
But, but it's, it's obvious that we have to start acting already now if we want to reach the low limit of Paris agreement.
And, and this is one of the challenges that the both the UK government and, and we at the United Nations are, are, are elaborating and encouraging countries to, to raise the ambition level.
So now we are heading towards 2 to 3° warming instead of 1.5 to 2° and, and, and it it, it has been shown clearly that it would be beneficial for the, for the welfare of us human beings and welfare of, of, of the biosphere and the planet to, to, to, to, to, to reach even the lower limit of Paris agreement 1.5°.
Thank you very much, Professor Tallis, for that answer.
I just wanted to ask anybody else want to ask any further questions?
Can I go back, I think to Laurent from Swiss News Agency.
You want to come back on a question, Laurent?
Do you believe that the multiplying prevalence of fires and floodings in the last two years in the middle of the the pandemic contributed to that growing consciousness from Member State?
Yeah, that's a good question.
We were a little bit afraid that this pandemic would have been shadowing the the the even bigger problem, long term problem, climate change.
And it's important to compare COVID crisis and, and the risk related to climate change.
Because of COVID, we had very dramatic impacts on our everyday life and all these lockdowns and and so forth.
And we to be successful in climate, the mitigation, we would need changes in our everyday life, which wouldn't be very dramatic.
They, they, they would be like actually fairly, fairly moderate.
And, but if we fail with the climate mitigation, we would have a permanent problem for at least hundreds or even thousands of years.
And, and, and the, both the economic and human well-being effects would be much more dramatic than this, this COVID pandemic, which has been hitting us all in a dramatic way.
So, so that's something to to keep in mind.
But the good news is that that despite of this attention to pandemic, countries have come out with more ambitious plans to mitigate that.
That's the case in, in, in European Union, USA, G7 countries in general, including Japan, China has come out with with ambitious plants and, and, and also fossil fuel dependent economies like Saudi Arabia and Russia have also indicated that they would like to aim at the becoming carbon neutral by 20/20/50.
So this is very positive news, but but we have to speed up this this mitigation efforts to be successful.
Thank you very much for those questions.
It doesn't appear we have any more questions from the floor.
So I'd like to thank all of the journalists and and everyone following on UN Web TV for this live stream event on the United Science 2021.
The report will be available on the WMO website and we also would thank our partners of United in Science.
The report will also be brought into the discussions with world leaders with the UN Secretary General in advance of the General Assembly.
And we also hope to use the results of this as we move in towards COP 26 Glasgow meeting in early November.
So thank you very much for joining this morning and we wish you a nice day.
