Was, wenn die Ziele des Abkommens von Paris überschritten werden? Da der Tag nicht mehr allzu fern sein dürfte, sind Antworten einer neu berufenen Kommission gefragt, die am Dienstag vorgestellt wurde. Sie soll unter anderem die Risiken von umstrittenen Technologien wie Geoengineering bestimmen.
Eine hochrangige Kommission aus 16 internationalen Führungspersönlichkeiten wird sich in den kommenden Monaten mit dem Problem überschießender Emissionen beschäftigen. Die Global Commission on Governing Risks from Climate Overshoot wurde am Dienstag unter dem Dach des Pariser Friedensforums gegründet. Sie wird darüber beratschlagen, wie man die Risiken für Mensch und Natur verringern könnte, wenn sich die Erderwärmung fortsetzt und die Klimaziele von Paris gerissen werden.
Eine zeitweilige Überschreitung der Ziele („Overshoot“) gilt mittlerweile als sicher. Erst kürzlich hatte die Weltwetterorganisation WMO mitgeteilt, dass in den nächsten fünf Jahren die Möglichkeit einer kurzzeitigen Überschreitung der 1,5-Grad-Schwelle besteht.
Der primäre Ansatz zur Bekämpfung des Klimawandels sollte die Reduzierung der Emissionen bleiben, heißt es in einer Mitteilung der Kommission dazu. Angesichts steigender Temperaturen gebe es jedoch weitere Ansätze zur Reduzierung von Klimarisiken. Dazu gehörten eine schnellere Anpassung an den Klimawandel, die Entfernung von Kohlendioxid aus der Atmosphäre (Carbon Dioxid Removal – CDR) und die Kühlung des Planeten durch Reflexion des einfallenden Sonnenlichts (Solar Radiation Management – SRM). Untersuchungen würden zeigen, dass diese Optionen, wenn sie die Emissionssenkungen ergänzen und gut gesteuert würden, Schäden für die Menschen und den Planeten abwenden könnten, so die Kommission.
English translation
CLIMATE POLICY: Commission to identify overshoot risks
Taggespiegel
Susanne Ehlerding
18 May 2022
What if the goals of the Paris Agreement are exceeded? Since the day should not be too far away, answers are needed from a newly appointed commission, which was presented on Tuesday. Among other things, it is intended to determine the risks of controversial technologies such as geoengineering.
A high-level commission of 16 international leaders will address the problem of excess emissions in the coming months. The Global Commission on Governing Risks from Climate Overshoot was established on Tuesday under the umbrella of the Paris Peace Forum. She will discuss how to reduce the risks to people and nature if global warming continues and the Paris climate targets are torn down.
A temporary exceeding of the targets (“overshoot”) is now considered certain. The World Weather Organization (WMO) recently announced that the 1.5-degree threshold could be briefly exceeded in the next five years. The primary approach to combating climate change should remain reducing emissions, according to a Commission communication. In view of rising temperatures, however, there are other approaches to
reducing climate risks. These included faster adaptation to climate change, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (Carbon Dioxide Removal - CDR) and cooling the planet by reflecting the incoming sunlight (Solar Radiation Management - SRM).
Research shows that these options, if complemented with emissions cuts and managed well, could avert harm to people and the planet, the commission said. Many members from the Global South The Commission's experts from Europe include the head of the European Climate Foundation, Laurence Tubiana, and the former Swedish foreign minister, Margot Wallström. Also present are Anote Tong, former President of the Republic of Kiribati, and Ibrahim Thiaw, Secretary General of the UN Convention
against Desertification. The Commission is headed by Pascal Lamy, President of the Peace Forum and former Director-General of the World Trade Organization.
The commission will meet for the first time on June 9-10 in Italy, its executive secretary, SRM expert Jesse Reynolds, told Tagesspiegel Background. By summer 2023, the Commission will then present a strategy that will classify the options described for mitigating the climate crisis and describe how these could be regulated. "This should then also serve as information for the Global Stocktake at the UN Climate Change Conference in November 2023," Reynolds continued - i.e. for the major review of the
effectiveness of the Paris Agreement.
"The IPCC has called excessive temperatures almost inevitable," Reynolds said. "But that shouldn't stop us from taking action," he says. The question is for how long and to what extent the climate targets will be exceeded. In any case, the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere has risen higher and higher on the political agenda. "The question now is how these technologies can be scaled up and how extracted quantities of greenhouse gases can be verified and permanently stored."
Pressure on the industrialized countries will increase
The CDR expert Oliver Geden from the Science and Politics Foundation welcomed the founding of the commission. "It is good that this is being taken up and that the particularly affected actors from the Global South are dealing with the risks of exceeding the climate targets, but also of the technologies
mentioned," he said.
The following emerging development is politically interesting: "If 1.5 degrees are exceeded, the pressure from the developing countries on the industrialized countries will increase," predicts Geden. Then a new consensus would have to be formed on how to deal with exceeding the target, he says. It is the task of the Commission to show options for this.
Read full article of Tagesspiegel in German