Climate Action Unit co-authors 2021 Climate Risk Assessment with Chatham House

On 14th September, Chatham House released the climate risk assessment 2021 - a major report looking at the downstream consequences of climate change.

The summary report for heads of government, co-authored by Dr Kris De Meyer and Dr Lucy Hubble-Rose, highlights how climate change will impact key policy areas such as food security, trade and international relations in the coming decades.

This short report focuses on impacts that are likely to be locked in for the period 2040–50 unless emissions drastically decline before 2030. It notes that the world is dangerously off track to meet the Paris Agreement goals, and that the risks are compounding.

With this knowledge, the report highlights the opportunity and necessity for greater mitigation action:

The governments of highly emitting countries have an opportunity to accelerate emissions reductions through ambitious revisions of their NDCs, significantly enhancing policy delivery mechanisms and incentivizing rapid large-scale investment in low-carbon technologies. This will lead to cheaper energy and avert the worst climate impacts."

Accelerating the energy transition is a crucial target for decision-makers, conclude the CAU co-authors.

Kris & Lucy have previously highlighted the potential for scaling up renewables: in April 2021 they, along with academics from the University of Oxford's Smith School, posited that the transition to a carbon-neutral energy system could happen faster and be cheaper than models tend to predict.

Further information about this work can be found at: https://site.energychallenge.info/.

To read the Chatham House 2021 Climate Change Risk Assessment and the summary report, click here.