‘All hands on deck’: Cities respond to landmark IPCC report

António Guterres, the United Nations Secretary General, called the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “code red for humanity”.

The Sixth Assessment Report on climate science says it is “unequivocal” that human activity is changing the climate in unprecedented and sometimes irreversible ways. It warns of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts and flooding, and that temperatures are on course to rise by 1.5°C or more above pre-industrial levels within the next two decades, breaching the ambition of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Scientists say preventing this threshold from being exceeded requires “immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions” in greenhouse gas emissions.

“This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet,” Guterres said.

City impact

The report has major implications for cities, which account for more than 70 percent of global CO2 emissions and whose residents face some of the highest risks from climate impacts. It comes in the wake of devastating floods, wildfires and extreme heat in several parts of the world.

Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles and Chair of the C40 Cities climate action network, said: “The evidence laid out in these pages confirms what we are all witnessing each and every day,” adding that: “This crisis will continue to disproportionately burden those that have the least, so our response must be strong, just, and leave no one behind.”

He reiterated calls for urgency and international co-operation, saying we are in “the single most important decade in human history.”

“That means taking urgent action to halve global emissions by 2030, a feat that can’t be accomplished unless we come together to deliver a Global Green New Deal,” Garcetti said, noting that cities control transportation networks, building codes, and water and power lines, making mayors uniquely positioned to play an instrumental role and set an example.

Two important lessons

Gino Van Begin, Secretary General, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, a global network working with more than 2,500 members, said the report contains two important lessons for local and regional governments: “First, using data from over 14,000 studies, the report shows region-specific changes to climate, meaning that our cities, towns and regions will have a clearer picture of what to expect in the coming decades and how to protect the lives and livelihoods of residents in more frequent and intense extreme weather events.”

Further, he added: “The findings reinforce how critical it is to achieve net zero emissions as soon as possible through an all hands on deck approach. Local and regional governments must be a part of immediate and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions through multi-level collaboration with national governments if we are to have any chance of holding the line at 1.5°C and avoiding the most devastating impacts of climate change.”

Dario Nardella, President of Eurocities and Mayor of Florence, said: “The IPCC report underscores that we can no longer afford to watch what is happening without taking immediate action. People have the capacity to adversely affect climate, but we also have the ingenuity to be better. This is a call to action for all who care about the health of our planet, and of future generations. Through initiatives such as the recently launched Mayors Alliance for the European Green Deal, cities are demonstrating that we can deal with this crisis and that we are ready and willing to act now.”

As well as reducing emissions, experts have also recently called for cities to step up adaptation and resilience measures in recognition of the fact that some climate change is already “locked in”.

The IPCC report, which has been eight years in the making and brings together the work of hundreds of scientific experts and peer-review studies, comes less than three months ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.