No, we can't keep hitting snooze on the climate

We’ll start by saying welcome to all the new subscribers - it’s great to have you here. Rumour has it your respective mums love you more now that you’re subscribed to The Strawman, but what do I know 🤷‍♂️.

On Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published the final part of its sixth assessment report. The IPCC is a UN group responsible for providing scientific information on climate change to policymakers and the public. I don’t wanna say they’re copying what we’re doing at The Strawman, but I can hear the Xerox machine from here.

Each assessment takes 6-8 years to complete and this is likely to be the last one while we still have a chance of hitting the 1.5C target.

Their message is clear: we are running out of time.

IPCC Assessment

• 3 billion+ people live in areas highly vulnerable to climate breakdown

• Half the world faces severe water scarcity for at least part of the year

• Average temperatures are around 1.1C above pre-industrial levels

• We are quickly approaching the limit at which we will be able to adapt to these changes

IPCC Recommendations

• Urgent emissions cuts across the board, not just promises of them

• Deploy wind and solar at scale (this is much more cost-efficient than it used to be)

• Shift consumption to energy efficient solutions for home, transit, and industry

I’m sure most of us knew this already - so why does it feel like the IPCC’s on mute? Well, the point of the IPCC is not necessarily to present anything new but rather to show that scientists are in agreement on the drivers, impact, and potential remedies of climate breakdown.

Historically, these reports have been thousands of pages long and most of the messaging goes through layers of bureaucracy. This summary report is 36 pages and gets straight to the point.

Time’s ticking. We can’t afford to keep doing the “just 5 more minutes” thing and hitting snooze - the time for action is now.

In tomorrow’s newsletter, we’ll spend some time looking through what some particularly interesting actions could be - for now, adios.