The third and final installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) Sixth Assessment Report calls for aggressive and comprehensive actions if we are to achieve net zero emissions by mid-century. It finds we still need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically, beyond what governments have pledged, and that this emissions gap is exacerbated by implementation gaps despite the mitigation efforts underway.
“Significant cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions, even getting close to net zero emissions, and even from energy-intensive industries such as iron and steel and plastic, can be achieved by 2050. But it will require a reorientation from the historic focus on incremental improvement, like energy efficiency, to transformational changes in energy and feedstock sourcing,” said Stéphane de la Rue du Can, a researcher from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) who is a lead author of the industry chapter.
Berkeley Lab researchers were also leading contributors on a new chapter to evaluate climate mitigation pathways in the near- to mid-term and served as overall reviewers representing the U.S. Government. The first installment of this IPCC Assessment Report was released last summer (with contributions from several Berkeley Lab scientists) and the second installment was released earlier this year. This third and final part focuses on climate change mitigation, or ways to limit or prevent greenhouse gas emissions.
Read more at DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Image: Berkeley Lab researchers (from left) Stéphane de la Rue du Can, Nan Zhou, Lynn Price, and Nina Khanna worked on the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group 3. (Credit: Berkeley Lab)