6th IPCC report

"Strong, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and a reduction of net CO2 emissions to zero will be needed to stabilise the climate. Limiting other greenhouse gases and air pollutants, especially methane, could benefit both public health and the climate," said Panmao Zhai, co-chair of IPCC Working Group I.
+ 5,7 C. This is the focus of the report. Under all scenarios, from the most optimistic to the most pessimistic, the global temperature is expected to reach +1.5°C in 2030 compared to the pre-industrial era, ten years earlier than the IPCC's previous estimate three years ago. But the IPCC is also projecting warming of up to +5.7°C... and this is far from a crazy assumption, for several reasons. Barely half of all governments have revised their greenhouse gas emission commitments. The previous set of commitments, made in the wake of the 2015 Paris Agreement, would lead to a +3°C world, if met (which is often not even the case). At the current rate, the world is heading towards +4 C or +5 C.
The IPCC points to human responsibility for global warming. Yes, it is a fact, human activity is responsible, but what human activity are we talking about?
The IPCC has never talked so much about methane, the second most important greenhouse gas after CO2. It is sounding the alarm on Monday that if CH4 emissions are not reduced, it could undermine the goals of the Paris Agreement. Concentrations of CH4 in the atmosphere - to which leakage from gas production, mining, waste disposal and livestock contribute - are at their highest in 800,000 years. This gas has a much greater warming power than CO2, although it stays in the atmosphere for a shorter time.
According to the UN, every day 25,000 people, including more than 10,000 children, die from hunger and related causes. It is estimated that 854 million people are undernourished worldwide and that rising prices risk pushing another 100 million people into poverty and hunger.
Nearly one billion people live in slums, about one in three urban dwellers in developing countries.
Some 2.1 billion people, or 30% of the world's population, still lack access to safe domestic water supplies and 4.5 billion, or 60%, lack safely managed sanitation services.
According to the WHO, fuel poverty is a major issue worldwide:
- 1 billion people have no access to electricity.
- 3 billion people cook with wood or coal.
- 25% of the budget of the poorest people is used for lighting and cooking.
- 4 million people die each year from pollution in the home.
- 300,000 people die each year from burns and fires.
- Deforestation amounts to the equivalent of 57,500 football fields per year.
Multinationals violate human rights and destroy the environment with impunity. Their lobbies shape laws to suit their interests. They enjoy exorbitant privileges, protected by trade and investment agreements: against all logic, profits take precedence over human rights!
These corporations want to pretend that they are the solution to poverty and climate change, but these are problems that they themselves have created - or made worse. They are constantly reinventing themselves to impose their false solutions and prevent the adoption of any measure that would constrain their activities, put them under control, or threaten their profits. They have succeeded in imposing their logic on governments and benefit from a true global architecture of impunity.
At the international level, while more than 3,400 trade and investment treaties protect their profits, there is not a single treaty that compels multinationals to respect human rights and the environment. Many of these multinationals should no longer be owned by shareholders but by nations, and profit should no longer be their raison d'être but the answer to needs.
Did you know that?
- In 2021, there were 2755 billionaires around the world.
- 189.3 billion dollars is the wealth of the first billionaire
- 1% of the population owns almost half of the world's wealth.
The announcement by the NGO Oxfam caused a stir. And for good reason! The report highlighted a trend that is becoming more and more pronounced: the gap between the rich and the poor is widening every year... while billionaires emit 1300 times more CO2 than the average French person.

According to a report by the NGO Oxfam, the richest 1% of the world's population, or about 63 million people, emit twice as much greenhouse gas as the poorest half of the population. They alone are responsible for 15% of cumulative emissions.
The richest 10% of the world's population, about 630 million people, are responsible for about 52% of cumulative CO2 emissions.
For DAE SOS FUTUR, there is an urgent need to act to limit global warming and this is why major political measures must be taken at the international level. Access to electricity meets a vital need for humanity, its production must be zero carbon and accompanied by another logic, as opposed to the law of the market and profit. It is a matter of public good.
The reality of the planetary situation clearly shows that profit for the remuneration of shareholders and billionaires will not meet the climate challenges, and even less the end of poverty in the world.

Montreuil, 16 August 2021