IPCC: Climate finance not enough to limit global warning to below 1.5°C

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN body for assessing the science related to climate change has analysed that Climate finance not enough to limit global warning to below 1.5°C.

The panel released its synthesis report last week in Interlaken, Switzerland.

The report stated that an overwhelming majority of tracked climate finance was directed towards mitigation, but still fell short of the levels needed to limit global warming to below 2°C or 1.5°C.

“Adaptation has limits in how much it can protect us from losses and damages,” the IPCC stated, “but the world has been altered enough for adaptation to be prioritised alongside rapidly reducing emissions.

The estimated costs of adaptation vastly outstrip the current finance allocated to it, especially for developing countries. It is the same story for mitigation, where finance falls short of the levels needed to meet climate goals across all sectors and regions.

The IPCC stated that, if climate goals were to be achieved, both adaptation and mitigation financing would need to be increased substantially.

“There is sufficient global capital to close the global investment gaps, but there are barriers to redirecting capital to climate action,” read its report.

At the same time, it stated, financial actors – including investors, intermediaries, central banks and regulators – could shift the systemic underpricing of climate-related risks and reduce sectoral and regional mismatches between available capital and investment needs.

The IPCC reported that average annual modelled mitigation investment requirements for 2020 to 2030 in scenarios that limited warming to 2°C or 1.5°C were a factor of three to six times greater than current levels.