IPCC Report: GWEC’s response to ‘final warning to humanity’ in Sixth Assessment Report

Brussels, February 28, 2022 – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has today released its Sixth Assessment Report – ‘Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’. In response to the report the Global Wind Energy Council has issued this comment. 

Ben Backwell, GWEC CEO, said: “Today, the IPCC issued a final warning to humanity. The latest release of the Sixth Assessment Report is a brutal summary of the “unequivocal” scientific evidence: Human-induced climate change is a threat to every living thing, everywhere in the world.

“Half of the world’s population is “highly vulnerable” to the impacts of rising temperatures and extreme weather patterns on food security, water security and livelihoods. People in cities will suffer from heatwaves and infrastructure damage, while ecosystems and biodiversity are already undergoing irreversible impacts, including extinction.

“We cannot yield to the worst-case scenario of climate change when we still have a “brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity” to act. The report clearly outlines that adaptation is not an alternative to mitigation of climate change.

“We need to accelerate, with greater urgency than ever, the phaseout of fossil fuels which are today destabilising power markets and international security. We need to rapidly deploy more wind and renewable energy to shore up our global energy system and protect the human and natural world. Global annual installations of wind energy alone must scale up by 4 times within this decade to get on-track.”