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Top 10 Climate Science Insights Unveiled

The report findings underscore the looming inevitability of overshooting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C global warming target, emphasizing the urgency of a rapid and managed fossil fuel phase-out. 

Read the report here [2023/2024 10NICS Report & Journal Article are under embargo until December 3 – check back soon here or https://10insightsclimate.science/] .  

On December 3, 2023 at COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, leading global experts in social and natural sciences unveiled the annual 10 New Insights in Climate Science report, alongside UNFCCC Executive Secretary, Mr. Simon Stiell. The report equips policymakers with the latest and most pivotal climate science research from the previous 18 months, synthesized to help inform negotiations at COP28 and policy implementation through 2024 and beyond. 

The Earth League will be at COP28

Please join us at COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates for a series of presentations and discussions featuring the work of the Earth League.   

10 Must-haves Panel Discussion, led by Earth League co-chairs Peter Schlosser and Johan Rockström – 4 December 2023, 10:30 –11:30 (GST), Arizona State University Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory Pavilion, Blue Zone, COP8, Dubai, U.A.E

10 New Insights in Climate Science Panel Discussion, led by Earth League co-chairs  Peter Schlosser and Johan Rockström – 4 December 2023, 14:30 – 15:30 (GST), Arizona State University Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory Pavilion, Blue Zone, COP8, Dubai, U.A.E

UNFCCC Press Launch 10 New Insights in Climate Science 2023/2024 – 3 December 2023, 16:00 – 16:30 (GST), UNFCCC Press conference Room 1, Zone B8, Blue Zone, COP28, Dubai U.A.E. Livestream for the Press conference will be available here. 

We hope to see you there! 

The Earth League is grieving for Saleemul Huq

The Earth League deeply mourns the passing of Professor Saleemul Huq on October 28, 2023.

His work and impactful contributions in the field of climate adaptation and development are immeasurable, and his unwavering commitment to justice and transformation leave an impactful mark in the world. Professor Huq will be greatly missed, but his vision lives on and will continue to inspire us and the generations to come. 

Our heartfelt condolences extend to Professor Huq’s family, friends and colleagues at ICCAD. 

Learn more about Professor Huq’s legacy with this obituary in TIME and PIK’s words of remembrance.  

‘10 Must-haves’ Intelligence Briefing Published in Global Sustainability

Accelerating transformations for a just, sustainable future: 10 ‘Must Haves’, has now been published as Open Access (OA) in Global Sustainability

The 10 Must-haves initiative aims to identify the pathways of accelerated systemic transformations needed across the globe toward a sustainable and just future where all can thrive on a healthy planet. In this Intelligence Briefing, the authors lay out the rationale for the project, the proposed targets, and set the stage for forthcoming work on action.

Explore the full article at https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2023.14 

 

Global Futures Conference 2023

The 2023 Global Futures Conference took place over a 3-day period, between September 19th – 21st at the Javits Center in New York City. It coincided with New York Climate Week and the 78th Session of the UN General Assembly, adding significance to the occasion. The conference drew a diverse audience of over 300 individuals hailing from the public and private sectors, academia, the scientific community, Indigenous groups, and global youth.

The primary goal of the 2023 Global Futures Conference, building upon the progress of the inaugural Global Futures Conference, GF22, and the ongoing efforts of the Earth League, aimed to advance specific action pathways related to the 10 Must Haves initiative. The initiative forms the underpinning of an emerging coalition formed among private and public sector entities, research institutions, multilateral organizations, among other stakeholders, that endorse the effort and leverage their collective knowledge, authority and access to accelerate action. An Intelligence Briefing on the “10 Must Haves” was accepted by Global Sustainability Journal in advance of the conference (now published).

The conference served to further develop and inform the 10 Must Haves report intended as a roadmap for governments, corporations and multilateral institutions to take bold and important steps to achieve just and sustainable futures. 

To learn more, visit: https://globalfuturesconference.org/

Requesting input for this year’s 10 New Insights in Climate Science

The 10 New Insights in Climate Science series, jointly developed by The Earth League, Future Earth, and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), is an annual synthesis highlighting essential recent advances in climate change research with high policy relevance, from natural and social sciences. This influential policy report has been launched every year since 2017 at the climate COP with participation from the UNFCCC  Executive Secretary.

Every year we rely on an extensive effort of expert consultation across the research networks of the three partner organizations. We are seeking the input of active researchers, across all disciplines, working with issues related to climate change.

Please fill out this form and share your thoughts about what essential new climate change insights, discoveries, and advancements should be highlighted for policy-makers, negotiators and the general public. You can also indicate your interest in contributing as a co-author of the peer-review paper that underpins the policy report. The manuscripts from the 2020, 2021, and 2022 installments have been published in the journal Global Sustainability. This call is open until 17 February 2023.

Leading Scientists Highlight 10 Essential Climate Science Insights for 2022

Researchers stress that only through ambitious mitigation efforts and systemic transformation, can we avoid facing widespread limits to adaptation, and increased losses and damages

Read the report here.

On November 10, 2022 at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, leading global experts from the natural and social sciences presented ten essential insights on climate change since 2021. Convened by the international networks The Earth League, Future Earth, and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) scientists from around the world released the annual 10 New Insights in Climate Science report with UNFCCC Executive Secretary Mr. Simon Stiell. The 10 New Insights in Climate Science presents key insights from the latest climate change-related research this year and responds to clear calls for policy guidance during this climate-critical decade. The authors emphasize and unpack the complex interactions between climate change and other drivers of risk, such as conflicts, pandemics, food crises and underlying development challenges in the report. Read full press release here.

Expert Elicitation Open Until May 13, 2022

Please join us in developing a bold but actionable set of levers for global transformational change.

The Earth League, led by co-chairs Peter Schlosser and Johan Rockström, is committed to answering the question: “What are the non-negotiable ‘must have’s targets and ‘must do’ actions that can accelerate the necessary change to a safe, just, and habitable planet for all?”

We invite you to contribute to this effort, initially by responding to this questionnaire by May 13.

For additional details on this project, refer to the following overview.

Call for Topics: 10 New Insights in Climate Science 2022

The Earth League, Future Earth, and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) have been preparing 10 New Insights in Climate Science policy reports for six consecutive years, all officially received by the UNFCCC. The latest report was launched at COP26 in Glasgow, in a press conference with UNFCCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa. This publication series curates recent advances in climate change research across disciplines, and is an important science policy contribution. The synthesis is submitted for peer-review, and published in an academic journal. This synthesis underpins the development of the policy report which provides a climate science year-in-review for journalists, policy makers, and the informed general public. We have begun preparing the 10 New Insights in Climate Science 2022, and are scoping expertise from around the globe for inputs on which key findings should be featured. We invite experts in a wide variety of disciplines and sectors to contribute to this year’s effort, by answering this form by February 20.

Can we still limit global warming to 1.5 °C by 2100?

color scale
Fig. 1: Annual global temperatures from 1850 to 2017 shown in warming stripes. The color scale represents the change in global temperatures covering 1.35°C. Source: https://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2018/warming-stripes/
And, do we rely too much on so-called ‘silver bullet’-solutions in the known scenarios? These are two of the central questions of a recent publication by Waszawski et al. published in Environmental Research Letters. Among the coauthors are Earth League Fellows Tim Lenton, Daniela Jacob, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, and Kazuhiko Takeuchi, as well as Earth League co-chairs Peter Schlosser and Johan Rockström. The study that is based on the results of the 2019 Annual Earth League Workshop (“Towards a 1.5 °C world: Challenges and Solutions”) investigated 50 of the SR1.5 scenarios (the currently known scenarios with which global warming can be limited to 1.5°C with low or no overshoot) of the IPCC with regard to their feasibility and limits. Available technologies and other options to reduce CO2 (‘levers’) were investigated for their feasibility by determining within which boundaries they could be used at a ‘reasonable’ (most desirable), ‘challenging’ or ‘speculative’ level when they would be deployed at such a large scale as implied by the scenarios. None of the scenarios were able to limit global warming to 1.5 °C as stated in the Paris Agreement when all levers were only used within ‘reasonable’ boundaries. When at least one of the five levers was allowed to be used within ‘challenging’ boundaries, less than half of the scenarios were able to limit global warming. Additionally, most of the scenarios used geological CO2 storage methods beyond what is currently acknowledged to be feasible (‘silver bullet’-solution). Continue reading