Imagine a world where electric cars have replaced combustion engines.
A world powered by fields of wind turbines and solar panels, where coal, gas and oil would go down in the history books as energies of the past century.
A world where we no longer eat meat at every meal but vegetable proteins.
A utopia ?
May be.
But for climatologists, it is the only truly sustainable development model that would be compatible with a drastic drop in our greenhouse gas emissions.
This is essentially the message delivered by the new report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) unveiled on Monday afternoon.
278 scientists from around the world combed through more than 18,000 studies to determine, sector by sector, the best ways to mitigate global warming.
Starting from an alarming observation summarized by Céline Guivarch, one of the French authors of the report: “The longer we wait to act, the more the situation will be difficult and costly to manage.
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The +1.5°C target will be exceeded
“The coming decade is critical and everything will depend on the investments we make today,” agrees Raphaël Jachnik, climate finance specialist at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
"Unless there is strong and immediate action that quickly leads to a reduction in emissions, the objective of +1.5°C will be exceeded (
limit set at COP 21
), warns Céline Guivarch, who officiates at the International Center research on the environment and development (Cired).
While we are already suffering damage from global warming, each additional fraction of a degree will increase the risks and make things more and more complex to manage.
»
“The IPCC estimates that there are less than ten years left to act if we want to stay below the +1.5°C mark because if we do nothing, our emissions will continue to increase by 14% by 2030 when they should drop by 45% over this period”, summarizes the head of European policies of the Climate Action Network, Neil Makaroff.
So much for the finding.
We must therefore act quickly.
But how ?
Increase the transition to electric vehicles, develop solar panels, drastically reduce public support for fossil fuels, gradually close coal, fuel oil and gas power stations… Climatologists believe that multiple solutions are on the table to “decarbonize” the world economy.
Changing our lifestyles
In the context of the war in Ukraine, which underlines more than ever the dependence of the economies on fossil fuels, the Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres, moreover, did not cut corners in estimating that the dependence on oil, coal and gas was "madness".
"The IPCC believes that the best lever to reduce this dependence and our polluting emissions is to massively develop solar and wind energy", rejoices Clément Sénéchal, in charge of the climate dossier at Greenpeace.
"Climate scientists put renewable energies at the top of the solutions to quickly reduce our emissions, pointing out that their cost is falling sharply and that they have a faster deployment capacity than nuclear or carbon storage technologies, adds Neil Makarov.
But for the first time, the IPCC is also talking about energy sobriety and the need to change our lifestyles.
» Which happens in particular, according to this climate change specialist, by « the fact of consuming less meat products (
breeding emits a lot of greenhouse gases
), of favoring soft modes of transport to the car in town, to switch to electric models and to be more economical in terms of energy to heat our homes”.
“We can choose to take the train or the plane and change our consumption patterns, which is indeed a matter of individual decisions, recognizes the director of Cired, Franck Lecocq.
But everything also depends on the way in which public policies are implemented, on what is offered to the inhabitants so that this transition is just economically and socially.
“What this report says, adds Franck Lecocq, is precisely that decarbonizing the planet is not incompatible with having a decent life.
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