BY Jean-Marc GARDES

In the spring of 2023, the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change, a group created as early as 1988) produced its sixth report, synthesizing thousands of pages of studies, and then sent it to governments, economic decision-makers, and journalists around the world. This sixth report was itself a synthesis of three previous reports published in August 2021, February, and April 2022 by the IPCC's three working groups.

Group 1 focused on the physics of climate change in the context of the changes caused by our greenhouse gas emissions.

Group 2 worked on assessing climate risks, societal vulnerability, and possible adaptations.

Group 3 sought to identify how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a level that would allow us to achieve the objectives of the Copenhagen Climate Convention in 2019, namely a maximum of 2°C of warming compared to pre-industrial levels, and then to get as close as possible to the 1.5°C agreed upon in Paris in 2015.

Group 1: 234 authors from 65 countries, several hundred contributing authors, evaluated over 14,000 scientific publications. The result: a 3,949-page report.

At its plenary meeting, the IPCC adopted the "Summary for Policymakers" (= presentation summary) of the working group's conclusions, intended for heads of state and government.

Group 2: 270 experts who called upon 675 other contributing authors and analyzed over 34,000 scientific publications. Their full report = 3,976 pages, condensed into their "report for decision-makers" = 35 pages.

Group 3: 278 experts and 354 other contributors. 18,000 scientific publications analyzed. Full report: 2,913 pages and "report for decision-makers": 63 pages.

We must thank Sylvestre Huet for having read, analyzed, dissected, and deciphered these three IPCC reports, an immense work of several thousand pages, to ultimately present the essentials in a form accessible to the widest possible audience (1). A task largely accomplished by the science journalist between October 2022 and January 2024.

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(1) His book published in April 2024 by Tallandier, col. Texto: The IPCC: Climate Emergency/The Undeniable Report Explained to All (222 p.).

With this work, and this is the author's ambition, no one will be able to say "I didn't know..."; everyone will be able to understand the risks of inaction and will know what to do.

1) The observed climate change is incontestable and unprecedented for several thousand years; it represents a major threat to human societies.

2) It is still possible to contain this change within limits that will reduce its harmful consequences for humanity IF we implement an immediate and massive reduction in global emissions and if we continue this reduction until the end of the 21st century.

An original feature: the carp and the rabbit!

The IPCC is the result of an unprecedented marriage between science and politics.

Fearing being overtaken by the pro-industry environmentalists who spoke at the 1992 UN-sponsored climate convention in Rio de Janeiro, political leaders of the world's richest countries feared a challenge to the energy basis of their oil-based power. They therefore advocated for a hybrid organization: both political, to meet governments' demand for expertise, and scientific, with an office tasked with recruiting specialists on each topic at the global level (the right, the only level to grasp the problem), i.e., the mobilized international scientific community. This was to establish a critical synthesis of scientific output on climate change.

The IPCC conducts a rigorous analysis of the causes and consequences of climate change, as well as the means to mitigate this threat by controlling greenhouse gas emissions. But it is "statutorily" prohibited, by its mission, from going beyond this. That is, from recommending any policy. While this limitation allows for the success of the expert mission, it also requires a different framework, a different process for making actionable decisions: either in each country or at the COP (Conference of the Parties), i.e., the meetings of the signatory countries to the UN Climate Convention.

Sylvestre Huet's book

Sylvestre Huet's analysis and presentation of the reports of the three IPCC groups, carried out in just 222 pages, is extremely interesting and rich. It covers:

climate physics,

impacts, adaptation and vulnerability,

climate change mitigation.

At the same time, this work highlights the link between "end of life" and "end of month," locates the right level of action, points out the interactions between the measures taken or proposed, and further points out the false good solutions. It also calls into question the way of life and growth of our Western societies with this reminder borrowed from the authors of the report: "The middle classes of rich and emerging countries - the bulk of the richest 10% of the world's population in terms of income - are unlikely to engage in severe voluntary sobriety if they constantly have before their eyes the spectacle of the limitless consumption of the very wealthy. But this is the only possible wording for a consensual expertise on a global scale." And again: "How can we promote sobriety as a major means of climate policy and say nothing about the advertising industry? This giant manipulation of minds emerged after the Second World War, when large US companies wondered how to follow up on military orders to stimulate the growth of their activities and profits."

A must-read, because as the late President Chirac said: "The house is burning..."

Conclusion

In his insightful conclusion, the science journalist brings the question back to a political level by raising two problems in Group 3:

To whom should we entrust the "movement of the world" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve the 2°C maximum warming target: the capitalist market, and its quest for maximum financial return in the shortest possible time, its logic of unbridled competition between companies to capture market share, or should we rely on strong state regulations and collective planning?

The eradication of poverty in countries where the population lives on less than $2 a day has been achieved through the consumption of fossil fuels, the very fuels responsible for global warming.

Can't the answer be found in a thought that Marx could have formulated? There is no solution to the ecological and social questions without expropriating the expropriators and without reconquering and redirecting the means of production.

https://www.legrandsoir.info/le-giec-urgence-climat.html

WE HAVE TACKLED THIS SUBJECT SINCE 2005 ON THIS SITE AND SINCE 1979 FOR GUS LEONISKY.... THE SCIENCE OF GLOBAL WARMING IS GENERALLY CORRECT — EXCEPT IT UNDERPLAYS THE TIMELINE OF CHANGE WHICH IN TERMS OF HUMAN HISTORY IS A LONG PLAY-OUT WHILE IN GEOLOGICAL TERMS IS A SHORT TIMEFRAME. 

A SCIENTIST (NOT IN CLIMATE SCIENCES WE SHALL SAY) WHO HAS A NOBEL PRIZE IN QUANTUM MECHANICS CLAIMS TO KNOW BETTER ABOUT STATISTICAL ERROR AND POOR MEASUREMENTS THAN 11,000 SCIENTISTS DEDICATED TO THE STUDY OF CLIMATE. I BEG TO DIFFER WITH THE DITHERING OF John Clauser, YOUR HONNOR... 

THE ELASTICITY BETWEEN CAUSE AND EFFECT IN THE WARMING OF THE ATMOSPHERE IS COMPLEX, DUE TO FEED-BACK MECHANISMS. THE MAIN ONE, IDENTIFIED BY SVANTE ARRHENIUS IN 1897 IS THE AMOUNT OF CARBON DIOXIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE.

SAY, A SMALL AMOUNT OF ASPIRIN WILL CURE YOUR HEADACHE AND PAIN. A TINY AMOUNT OF SPIDER TOXIN CAN KILL YOU.

A SMALL INCREASE IN THE PROPORTION OF CO2 IN THE ATMOSPHERE CAN AND WILL WARM IT UP WHILE A DECREASE WILL COOL IT. ANYONE USING A MICROWAVE OVEN KNOW THAT THE SPECIFIC WAVELENGTH OF THE MICROWAVE WILL HEAT UP WATER... ACCORDING TO RESEARCH, THE WATER VAPOUR IN THE ATMOSPHERE IS ERRATIC FROM PLACE TO PLACE BUT ITS INFLUENCE ON THE GENERAL CLIMATE IS EVEN WHILE BEING A WARMING GAS...

SPECIFIC WAVELENGTHS OF LIGHT WARM UP CO2... CO2 ACTUALLY HEATS UP. METHANE HEATS UP. NOx GASES HEAT UP. ALL OF THESE GASES HEAT THE ATMOSPHERE AND THE OCEANS...

GLACIERS AND POLAR ICE ARE MELTING. HEAT, FLOOD AND DROUGHT RECORDS ARE BEATEN DAILY SOMEWHERE ON PLANET EARTH AND SO-CALLED "DISASTERS OF THE MILLENNIUM" ARE NEARLY HAPPENING YEARLY... THE PRESENT DAMAGE IS MINIMUM COMPARED TO SAY THE EXTINCTION OF THE DINOSAURS... YET THE CHANGE CAN BE NOTICED EVEN IF THE PROPORTION OF ERROR IN THE DATA IS +/-3 PER CENT.

MOST HURRICANE PATHS CAN BE ESTIMATED WITH SUCH A REASONABLE DEGREE OF ACCURACY, EXCEPT WHEN DONALD GRAFFITIS OVER THE MAP.

EVEN A DOUZY SCIENTIST LIKE LOMBORG SAYS THAT AN INCREASE OF 3 DEGREES CELSIUS BY THE END OF. THE CENTURY WON'T BE THAT BAD AND WE SHOULD NOT WORRY...

TO SOME EXTEND, SINCE THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, WE HAVE PUMPED ENOUGH EXTRA WARMING GASES IN THE ATMOSPHERE TO MAKE TEMPERATURES JUMP BY 6 TO 9 DEGREES CELSIUS BY 2150... AS MENTIONED BEFORE, 3 DEGREES EXTRA AT THE EQUATOR, 6 DEGREES IN THE TEMPERATE REGIONS AND 9 DEGREES AT THE POLES. 

BUT THIS IS CONJECTURE FOR "LATER ON"... WHAT IS NOT CONJECTURE IS THAT YOUR INSURANCE PREMIUM FOR YOUR HOUSE HAS GONE "THROUGH THE ROOF", BECAUSE THE ACTUARIES WHO CALCULATE THE ODDS FOR THEIR COMPANIES TO MAKE A PROFIT HAVE HAD TO INCLUDE GLOBAL WARMING, NOT BECAUSE IT'S FASHIONABLE, BUT BECAUSE OF THE STATISTICAL RATIO OF INCOME AND PAYOUT... THEY KNOW SOMETHING THAT A BRILLIANT NOBEL PRIZE WINNER DOES NOT: THE INCREASE IN DAMAGES FROM GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL.

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.