Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/TS (section)

=== TS.A.3 Key Developments Since AR5 ===

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Interdisciplinary climate change assessment, which has played a prominent role in science–society interactions on the climate issue since 1988, has advanced in important ways since AR5. Building on a substantially expanded scientific and technical literature, this AR6 report emphasises at least three broad themes. (Figure TS.2) { 1.1.4 }

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'''Figure TS.2 |''' '''This report has a strong focus on the interactions among the coupled systems climate, ecosystems (including their biodiversity) and human society.''' These interactions are the basis of emerging risks from climate change, ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss and, at the same time, offer opportunities for the future.

'''(a)''' Human society causes climate change. Climate change, through hazards, exposure and vulnerability generates impacts and risks that can surpass limits to adaptation and result in losses and damages. Human society can adapt to, maladapt and mitigate climate change, ecosystems can adapt and mitigate within limits. Ecosystems and their biodiversity provision livelihoods and ecosystem services. Human society impacts ecosystems and can restore and conserve them.

'''(b)''' Meeting the objectives of climate resilient development thereby supporting human, ecosystem and planetary health, as well as human well-being, requires society and ecosystems to move over (transition) to a more resilient state. The recognition of climate risks can strengthen adaptation and mitigation actions and transitions that reduce risks. Taking action is enabled by governance, finance, knowledge and capacity building, technology and catalysing conditions. Transformation entails system transitions strengthening the resilience of ecosystems and society (Section E). In a) arrow colours represent principle human society interactions (blue), ecosystem (including biodiversity) interactions (green) and the impacts of climate change and human activities, including losses and damages, under continued climate change (red). In b) arrow colours represent human system interactions (blue), ecosystem (including biodiversity) interactions (green) and reduced impacts from climate change and human activities (grey). { 1.2, Figure 1.2 }

First, this AR6 assessment has an increased focus on risk and solution frameworks. The risk framing can move beyond the limits of single best estimates or most likely outcomes and include high-consequence outcomes for which probabilities are low or in some cases unknown. In this report, the risk framing for the first time spans all three working groups, includes risks from the responses to climate change, considers dynamic and cascading consequences, describes with more geographic detail risks to people and ecosystems, and assesses such risks over a range of scenarios. The focus on solutions encompasses the interconnections among climate responses, sustainable development and transformation—and the implications for governance across scales within the public and private sectors. The assessment therefore includes climate-related decision-making and risk management, climate resilient development pathways, implementation and evaluation of adaptation, and also limits to adaptation and loss and damage. Specific focal areas reflect contexts increasingly important for the implementation of responses, such as cities. { 1.3.1, 1.4.4, 16, 17, 18 }

Second, emphases on social justice, equity and different forms of expertise have emerged. As climate change impacts and implemented responses increasingly occur, there is heightened awareness of the ways that climate responses interact with issues of justice and social progress. In this report, expanded attention is given to inequity in climate vulnerability and responses, the role of power and participation in processes of implementation, unequal and differential impacts and climate justice. The historic focus on scientific literature has also been increasingly accompanied by attention to and incorporation of Indigenous knowledge, local knowledge, and associated scholars. { 1.3.2, 1.4.1, 17.5.2 }

Third, AR6 has a more extensive focus on the role of transformation in meeting societal goals. { 1.5 }

The following overarching conclusions have been derived from the whole of the assessment of WGII:

# The magnitude of observed impacts and projected climate risks indicate the scale of decision-making, funding and investment needed over the next decade if climate resilient development is to be achieved.
# Since AR5, climate risks are appearing faster and will get more severe sooner ( ''high confidence'' ). Impacts cascade through natural and human systems, often compounding with the impacts from other human activities. Feasible, integrated mitigation and adaptation solutions can be tailored to specific locations and monitored for their effectiveness while avoiding conflict with sustainable development objectives and managing risks and trade-offs ( ''high confidence'' ).
# Available evidence on projected climate risks indicates that opportunities for adaptation to many climate risks will ''likely'' become constrained and have reduced effectiveness should 1.5°C global warming be exceeded and that, for many locations on Earth, capacity for adaptation is already significantly limited. The maintenance and recovery of natural and human systems will require the achievement of mitigation targets.

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'''Box TS.1 | Core Concepts of the Report'''
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This box provides an overview of key definitions and concepts relevant to the WGII AR6 assessment, with a focus on those updated or new since AR5.

'''Risk''' in this report is defined as the potential for adverse consequences for human or ecological systems, recognising the diversity of values and objectives associated with such systems. In the context of climate change impacts, risks result from dynamic interactions between climate-related hazards with the exposure and vulnerability of the affected human or ecological system. In the context of climate change responses, risks result from the potential for such responses not to achieve the intended objective(s) or from potential trade-offs or negative side-effects. '''Risk management''' is defined as plans, actions, strategies or policies to reduce the likelihood and/or magnitude of adverse potential consequences, based on assessed or perceived risks. { 1.2.1, Annex II: Glossary }

'''Vulnerability''' is a component of risk, but also, independently, an important focus. Vulnerability in this report is defined as the propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected and encompasses a variety of concepts and elements, including sensitivity or susceptibility to harm and lack of capacity to cope and adapt (Annex II: Glossary). Over the past several decades, approaches to analysing and assessing vulnerability have evolved. An early emphasis on top-down, biophysical evaluation of vulnerability included—and often started with—exposure to climate hazards in assessing vulnerability. From this starting point, attention to bottom-up, social and contextual determinants of vulnerability, which often differ, has emerged, although this approach is incompletely applied or integrated across contexts. Vulnerability is now widely understood to differ within communities and across societies, also changing through time. In WGII AR6, assessment of the vulnerability of people and ecosystems encompasses the differing approaches that exist within the literature, both critiquing and harmonising them based on available evidence. In this context, '''exposure''' is defined as the presence of people; livelihoods; species or ecosystems; environmental functions, services and resources; infrastructure; or economic, social or cultural assets in places and settings that could be adversely affected. Potentially affected places and settings can be defined geographically, as well as more dynamically, for example through transmission or interconnections through markets or flows of people. { 1.2.1, Annex II: Glossary }

'''Adaptation''' in this report is defined, in human systems, as the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects in order to moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, adaptation is the process of adjustment to actual climate and its effects; human intervention may facilitate this (see Annex II: Glossary). Adaptation planning in human systems generally entails a process of iterative risk management. Different types of adaptation have been distinguished, including anticipatory versus reactive, autonomous versus planned and incremental versus transformational adaptation. Adaptation is often seen as having five general stages: (a) awareness, (b) assessment, (c) planning, (d) implementation and (e) monitoring and evaluation. Government, non-government, and private-sector actors have adopted a wide variety of specific approaches to adaptation that, to varying degrees, conform to these five general stages. Adaptation in natural systems includes ''autonomous'' adjustments through ecological and evolutionary processes. It also involves the use of nature through ecosystem-based adaptation. The role of species, biodiversity and ecosystems in such adaptation options can range from the rehabilitation or restoration of ecosystems (e.g., wetlands or mangroves) to hybrid combinations of so-called green and grey infrastructure (e.g., horizontal levees). The WGII AR6 emphasises the assessment of observed adaptation-related responses to climate change, governance and decision-making in adaptation and the role of adaptation in reducing key risks and global-scale reasons for concern, as well as limits to such adaptation. { 1.2.1, 17.4 }

'''Resilience''' in this report is defined as the capacity of social, economic and environmental systems to cope with a hazardous event or trend or disturbance, responding or reorganising in ways that maintain their essential function, identity and structure while also maintaining the capacity for adaptation, learning and transformation. Resilience is an entry point commonly used, although under a wide spectrum of meanings. Resilience as a system trait overlaps with concepts of vulnerability, adaptive capacity and, thus, risk, and resilience as a strategy overlaps with risk management, adaptation and transformation. Implemented adaptation is often organised around resilience as bouncing back and returning to a previous state after a disturbance. { 1.2.1, Annex II: Glossary }

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'''Box TS.2 | AR6 Climate Dimensions, Global Warming Levels and Reference Periods'''
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Assessments of climate risks consider possible future climate change, societal development and responses. This report assesses literature including that based on climate model simulations that are part of the fifth and sixth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase (CMIP5, CMIP6) of the World Climate Research Programme. Future projections are driven by emissions and/or concentrations from illustrative Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) [[#footnote-005|1]] and Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) [[#footnote-004|2]] scenarios, respectively [[#footnote-003|3]] . Climate impacts literature is based primarily on climate projections assessed in AR5 or earlier, or assumed global warming levels, though some recent impacts literature uses newer projections based on the CMIP6 exercise. Given differences in the impacts literature regarding socioeconomic details and assumptions, WGII chapters contextualize impacts with respect to exposure, vulnerability and adaptation as appropriate for their literature, this includes assessments regarding sustainable development and climate resilient development. There are many emissions and socioeconomic pathways that are consistent with a given global warming outcome. These represent a broad range of possibilities as available in the literature assessed that affect future climate change exposure and vulnerability. Where available, WGII also assesses literature that is based on an integrative SSP-RCP framework where climate projections obtained under the RCP scenarios are analysed against the backdrop of various illustrative SSPs. The WGII assessment combines multiple lines of evidence including impacts modelling driven by climate projections, observations, and process understanding. { 1.2, 16.5, 18.2, CCB CLIMATE, WGI AR6 SPM.C, WGI AR6 Box SPM.1, WGI AR6 1.6, WGI AR6 12, WGI AR5 }

A common set of reference years and time periods are adopted for assessing climate change and its impacts and risks: the reference period 1850–1900 approximates pre-industrial global surface temperature, and three future reference periods cover the near-term (2021–2040), mid-term (2041–2060) and long-term (2081–2100). { CCB CLIMATE }

Common levels of global warming relative to 1850–1900 are used to contextualize and facilitate analysis, synthesis and communication of assessed past, present and future climate change impacts and risks considering multiple lines of evidence. Robust geographical patterns of many variables can be identified at a given level of global warming, common to all scenarios considered and independent of timing when the global warming level is reached. { 16.5, CCB CLIMATE, WGI AR6 Box SPM.1, WGI AR6 4.2, WGI AR6 CCB11.1 }

WGI assessed increase in global surface temperature is 1.09 [0.95 to 1.20] [[#footnote-002|4]] °C in 2011–2020 above 1850–1900. The estimated increase in global surface temperature since AR5 is principally due to further warming since 2003–2012 (+0.19 [0.16 to 0.22]°C). [[#footnote-001|5]] Considering all five illustrative scenarios assessed by WGI, there is at least a greater than 50% likelihood that global warming will reach or exceed 1.5°C in the near-term, even for the very low greenhouse gas emissions scenario [[#footnote-000|6]] . { WGI AR6 SPM A1.2, WGI AR6 SPM B1.3, WGI AR6 Table SPM.1, WGI AR6 CCB2.3 }

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[[#footnote-005-backlink|1]] RCP-based scenarios are referred to as RCPy, where ‘y’ refers to the level of radiative forcing (in watts per square meter, or W m -2 ) resulting from the scenario in the year 2100.

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[[#footnote-004-backlink|2]] SSP-based scenarios are referred to as SSPx-y, where ‘SSPx’ refers to the Shared Socio-economic Pathway describing the socio-economic trends underlying the scenarios, and ‘y’ refers to the level of radiative forcing (in watts per square meter, or W m -2 ) resulting from the scenario in the year 2100.

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[[#footnote-003-backlink|3]] IPCC is neutral with regard to the assumptions underlying the SSPs, which do not cover all possible scenarios. Alternative scenarios may be considered or developed.

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[[#footnote-002-backlink|4]] In the WGI report, square brackets [x to y] are used to provide the assessed ''very likely'' range, or 90% interval.

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[[#footnote-001-backlink|5]] Since AR5, methodological advances and new datasets have provided a more complete spatial representation of changes in surface temperature, including in the Arctic. These and other improvements have also increased the estimate of global surface temperature change by approximately 0.1°C, but this increase does not represent additional physical warming since AR5.

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[[#footnote-000-backlink|6]] Global warming of 1.5°C relative to 1850–1900 would be exceeded during the 21st century under the intermediate, high and very high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios considered in this report (SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5, respectively). Under the five illustrative scenarios, in the near term (2021–2040), the 1.5°C global warming level is ''very likely'' to be exceeded under the very high greenhouse gas emissions scenario (SSP5-8.5), ''likely'' to be exceeded under the intermediate and high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios (SSP2-4.5 and SSP3-7.0), ''more likely than not'' to be exceeded under the low greenhouse gas emissions scenario (SSP1-2.6) and ''more likely than not'' to be reached under the very low greenhouse gas emissions scenario (SSP1-1.9). Furthermore, for the very low greenhouse gas emissions scenario (SSP1-1.9), it is ''more likely than not'' that global surface temperature would decline back to below 1.5°C toward the end of the 21st century, with a temporary overshoot of no more than 0.1°C above 1.5°C global warming.

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