IRDR experts contribute to major new UN report on climate change

2 March 2022

Human-induced climate change is causing dangerous and widespread disruption in nature and affecting the lives of billions of people around the world according to a major new UN report on climate change.

view of garden distorted by rain on a window pane

The (IPCC), published in 27 February 2022, assesses the impacts of climate change, looking at ecosystems, biodiversity, and human communities at global and regional levels. It also reviews vulnerabilities and the capacities and limits of the natural world and human societies to adapt to climate change.

IRDR academic was appointed in 2019 as a contributing author for Chapter 4 (Water) in听.

Other IRDR academics whose work has strongly informed and shaped the report have been sharing their responses to its findings in relation to their own research.

suggested that although the report gives a grim verdict, there are also lessons on disasters and violent conflicts that could help save lives and create safer societies regardless of human-caused climate change.

鈥淎s an academic who researches听, I was particularly interested in how the report examined climate change as a cause of disasters, including violent conflicts, and set out actions to avoid them,鈥� he said.

鈥淭he IPCC鈥檚 summary entirely avoids the phrase 鈥渘atural disaster鈥�. This reflects听decades of work听explaining that听disasters are caused听by sources of vulnerability 鈥� such as unequal and inequitable access to essential services like healthcare or poorly designed or built infrastructure like power plants 鈥� rather than by the climate or other听environmental influences.鈥�

He concludes though that the report鈥檚 subtitle, 鈥淭aking action now can secure our future,鈥� needs emphasising.听

also highlighted how her research areas, including the links between mental health and climate change, trapped populations and loss and damage, were reflected in the report in more detail than ever before.

鈥淗aving been a part of a growing number of scholars working on loss and damage for so long it is amazing to see the entry and elaborations in the report,鈥� she explained. 鈥淭he report also presents a more complex and holistic understanding of limits to adaptation including social, psychological and subjective constraints to people's responses as well as barriers to mobility.鈥�

However, she added the report also illustrated how evidence in these areas was still urgently lacking.

You can read on the IPCC website, along with a .听The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change听is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. .

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IRDR experts contribute to major new UN report on climate change

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