rlacombe/ClimateX huggingface dataset:
Solar radiation modification (SRM) approaches have potential to offset warming and ameliorate other climate hazards, but their potential to reduce risk or introduce novel risks to people and ecosystems is not well understood (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Large negative impacts are projected from rapid warming for a sudden and sustained termination of SRM in a high-CO 2 scenario (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
The wide variation across disparate methodologies does not allow a robust range of damage estimates to be identified with confidence, though the spread of estimates increases with warming in all methodologies, indicating higher risk (in terms of economic costs) at higher temperatures (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Compared with AR5 and SR15, risks increase to high and very high levels at lower global warming levels for all five RFCs (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Transitions from high to very high risk emerge in all five RFCs, compared with just two RFCs in AR5 (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Risks are already (at current warming of 1.1°C) in the transition from moderate to high (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
The transition to very high risk occurs between 1.2°C and 2.0°C warming (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
The transition to very high risk occurs at between 2.0°C and 3.5°C warming (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Remaining below 2°C warming (but above 1.5°C) would imply that risk for RFC3 through 5 would be transitioning to high, and risk for RFC1 and RFC2 would be transitioning to very high (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
By 2.5°C warming, RFC1 will be in very high risk (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Once such risks materialise, as is expected at very high risk levels, the impacts would persist even if global temperatures would subsequently decline to levels associated with lower levels of risk in an ‘overshooting’ scenario (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
This general reduction in poverty across the world is accompanied by a decrease in vulnerability to many types of climate change impacts (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Climate change has started to induce such tipping points, with the first examples including mass mortality in coral reef ecosystems (e.g., Donner et al., 2017; Hughes et al., 2018; Hughes et al., 2019) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Many terrestrial ecosystems on all continents show evidence of significant structural transformation, including woody thickening and ‘greening’ in more water-limited ecosystems, with a significant role played by rising atmospheric CO 2 fertilisation in these trends (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Although anthropogenic climate forcing has increased droughts’ intensity or probability in many regions of the world (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
However, anthropogenic climate forcing has become the dominant driver of sea level rise (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
In addition, anthropogenic climate forcing has increased the amount of rainfall associated with tropical cyclones (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
However, meanwhile, stagnation or decline in yields is also observed in parts of the harvested areas (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Results are relatively convergent that climate change has been an important driver of the recent declines in wheat yields in Europe (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Going beyond extreme weather events, economic production depends nonlinearly on temperature fluctuations: below a certain threshold temperature, economic production increases with temperature, whereas it decreases above a certain threshold temperature (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
In addition, the empirical findings on the sensitivity of macroeconomic development to weather fluctuations and extreme weather events have been used to estimate the cumulative effect of historical warming on long-term economic development (see ‘Other societal impacts—Macroeconomic output’, Table SM16.22): anthropogenic climate change is estimated to have reduced gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the last 50 years, with substantially larger negative effects on developing countries and in some cases positive effects on colder industrialised countries (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: low)
Climate change is estimated to have substantially slowed down this trend, that is, increased inequality compared with a counterfactual no-climate- change baseline (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: low)
While many species are increasingly responding to climate change, there is limited evidence that these responses will be fully adaptive, and for many species the rate of response appears insufficient to keep pace with the rate of climate change under mid- and high-range emissions scenarios (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Some but not all adaptation-related responses are engaging vulnerable populations in planning or implementation (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Consideration of vulnerable populations is most frequently focused on low-income populations and women through the inclusion of informal or formal institutions or representatives in adaptation planning, or through targeted adaptations to reduce risk in these populations (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Consideration of vulnerable groups in adaptation responses is more frequently reported in the Global South (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Engagement in adaptation planning of vulnerable elderly, migrants, and ethnic minorities remains low across all global regions (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
There is negligible literature on consideration of disabled peoples in planning and implementation of adaptation-related responses (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Global adaptation is predominantly slow, siloed and incremental with little evidence of transformative adaptation (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Based on the literature, the overall transformative nature of adaptation across most global regions and sectors is low (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Documented adaptations tend to involve minor modifications to usual practices taken to address extreme weather conditions (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
For example, changing crop variety or timing of crop planting to address floods or droughts, new types of irrigation, pursuing supplementary livelihoods, and home elevations are widely reported but typically do not reflect radical or novel shifts in practice or values and are therefore considered low depth (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Adaptations documented in the literature are also frequently focused on a single sector or small geographic area (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
The speed of adaptation is rarely noted explicitly, but the average speed documented in the literature is slow (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Adaptation efforts frequently encounter either soft or hard limits (see Section 16.4), but there is limited evidence to suggest these limits are being challenged or overcome (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Few documented responses are simultaneously widespread, rapid and novel (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
In general, adaptations that are broad in scope tend to be slow (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Evidence on realised co-benefits of implemented adaptation responses with other priorities in the SDGs is emerging among the areas of poverty reduction, food security, health and well-being, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystem services, sustainable cities and communities, energy security, work and economic growth, and mitigation (Table 16.2) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Van Bavel, for example, found that the involvement of local and diverse knowledge can improve the detection (medium confidence) and attribution (medium confidence) of health impacts, and improve the action (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Cross-Chapter Box INTEREG | Inter-regional Flows of Risks and Responses to Risk Authors: Birgit Bednar-Friedl (Austria, Chapter 13), Christopher Trisos (South Africa, Chapter 9), Laura Astigarraga (Uruguay, Chapter 12), Magnus Benzie (Sweden/UK), Aditi Mukherji (India, Chapter 4), Maarten Van Aalst (the Netherlands, Chapter 16) Introduction Our world today is characterised by a high degree of interconnectedness and globalisation which establish pathways for the transmission of climate-related risks across sectors and borders (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
When climatic events like flooding or heat affect the location of these extraction and production activities, economies are not only disrupted locally but also across borders and in distant countries (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
For many industrialised countries like the UK, Japan, the USA and the European Union, there is increasing evidence that the trade impacts of climate change are significant and can have substantial domestic impacts (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
The export of major food crops like wheat, maize and soybeans from many of the world’s water-scarce area—the Middle East, North Africa, parts of South Asia, North China Plains, southwest USA, Australia—to relatively water-abundant parts of the world carries a high virtual water content (the net volume of water embedded in trade) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Climate change is projected to exacerbate risk and add new vulnerabilities for risk transmission (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
However, much of the available evidence focuses on constraints that may lead to limits at some point with little detailed information on how limits may be related to different levels of socioeconomic or environmental change (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Small islands and Central and South America show most evidence of constraints being linked to adaptation limits across sectors, while ocean and coastal ecosystems and health, well-being and communities show most evidence of constraints being linked to limits across regions (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Evidence on limits to adaptation is largely focused on terrestrial and aquatic species and ecosystems, coastal communities, water security, agricultural production, and human health and heat (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Interventionist adaptation strategies to reduce risks for species and ecosystems face soft limits due to governance, financial and knowledge constraints (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Hard limits for coastal communities reliant on nature-based coastal protection will be experienced beginning at 1.5°C (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Beginning at 3°C, hard limits are projected for water management measures, leading to decreased water quality and availability, negative impacts on health and well-being, economic losses in water and energy dependent sectors and potential migration of communities (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Soft and hard limits for agricultural production are related to water availability and the uptake and effectiveness of climate-resilient crops, which is constrained by socioeconomic and political challenges (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Adaptation measures to address risks of heat stress, heat mortality and reduced capacities for outdoor work for humans face soft and hard limits across regions beginning at 1.5°C and are particularly relevant for regions with warm climates (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
While individual constraints may appear straightforward to address, the combination of constraints interacting with each other leads to soft limits that are difficult to overcome (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
At the national level, negative macroeconomic responses to climate change may limit the availability of financial resources, impede access to financial markets and stunt economic growth (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Sectoral studies indicate that climate impacts will result in higher levels of losses and damages and decreases in income, thereby increasing financial constraints (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
At the household or community level, climate impacts may increase financial constraints (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
In some Arctic communities and in communities reliant on warm- water coral reefs, even 1.5–2°C warming will lead to severe risks from loss of ecosystem services (Section 3.4.2.2; Cross-Chapter Paper 6) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Warm-water coral reefs are at risk of widespread loss of structural complexity and reef accretion by 2050 under 1.5°C global warming (Section 3.4.2.1) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Much evidence shows increased risk of the loss of 10% or more of terrestrial biodiversity with increasing anthropogenic climate change (Urban, 2015; Smith et al., 2018) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Mass population-level mortality (>50% of individuals or colonies killed) and resulting abrupt ecological changes can be caused by simple or compound climate extreme events, such as exceedance of upper thermal limits by vulnerable terrestrial species (Fey et al., 2015), who also note reduced mass mortality trends due to extreme low thermal events; marine heatwaves that can cause mortality, enhance invasive alien species establishment, and damage coastal ecological communities and small-scale fisheries (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Freshwater ecosystems and their biodiversity are at high risk of biodiversity loss and turnover due to climate change (precipitation change and warming, including warming of water bodies), due to high sensitivity of processes and life histories to thermal conditions and water quality (Chapter 2) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
In marine systems, heatwaves cause damages in coastal systems, including extensive coral bleaching and mortality (very high confidence) (Section 3.4.2.1), mass mortality of invertebrate species (low to high confidence, depending on system) (Sections 3.4.2.2, Section 3.4.2.5, Section 3.4.4.1), and abrupt mortality of kelp-forest (high confidence) (Section 3.4.2.3) and seagrass-meadow habitat (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
The biodiversity of polar seas shows strong impacts of climate change on phenological timing of plankton activity, Arctic fish species range contractions and species community change (Table SM16.22) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Extreme weather events and storm surges exacerbated by climate change have severe and sudden adverse impacts on coastal systems, including loss of seagrass meadows and mangrove forests (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Landscape- and larger-scale shifts in ecosystem structure and function (order-of-magnitude increases or abrupt decreases in cover and/or biomass of novel growth forms or functional types) are occurring in non- equilibrium ecosystems (systems which exist in multiple states, often disturbance-controlled) in response to changing disturbance regime, climate and rising CO 2 (high confidence) Woody plant encroachment has been occurring in multiple ecosystems, including subtropical and tropical fire driven grassland and savanna systems, upland grassland systems, arid grasslands and shrublands (high confidence), leading to large-scale biodiversity changes, albedo changes, and impacts on water delivery, grazing services and human livelihoods (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
In tropical forests, repeated droughts and recurrence of large-scale anthropogenic fires increase forest degradation, loss of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
The loss of a substantial fraction of biodiversity globally, abrupt impacts such as significant local biodiversity loss and mass population mortality events, and ecological disruption due to novel species interactions have been observed or are projected at global warming levels below 2°C (Chapter 2 Table SM2.5, Cross Chapter Box: EXTREMES in Chapter 2, Section 2.4.4.3.1, Section 2.4.2.3.3) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Simple and compound impacts of extreme climate events are already causing significant losses and damages in vulnerable ecosystems, including through the facilitation of important global change drivers of ecological disruption and homogenisation like invasive species (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Biodiversity conservation efforts may be hampered due to climate change impacts on the effectiveness of protected areas, with high sensitivity of effectiveness to forcing scenario (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
In addition, climate-related risks to ecosystems pose challenges to ecosystem-based adaptation responses (‘nature-based solutions’) (Section 2.1.3) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
The major hazards driving such risks are acute extreme events such as cyclones, floods, droughts or fires (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Transport and energy infrastructure in coasts and polar systems and along rivers are projected to face a particularly steep rise in risk, resulting in severe risk even under medium warming (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Risk in relation to the increasing intensity and frequency of extreme events might become severe before the middle of the century (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Already today, climate-related impacts on transport and energy infrastructure reach far beyond the direct impacts on physical infrastructure, triggering indirect impacts on, for example, health and income (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Annual economic output losses in developing countries could exceed the worst country-level losses during historical economic recessions (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
More widespread severe risks would occur at high levels of warming (with high exposure/ vulnerability and low adaptation) where there is additional potential for one or more social or ecological tipping points to be triggered (Cai et al., 2015; Cai et al., 2016b; Kopp et al., 2016; Steffen et al., 2018; Lenton et al., 2019), and for severe impacts on livelihoods to cascade from relatively more climate-sensitive to relatively less climate-sensitive sectors and regions (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Without effective adaptation measures, regions with high dependence on climate-sensitive livelihoods—particularly agriculture and fisheries in the tropics and coastal regions—would be severely impacted even at low levels of warming (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Within populations, the poor, women, children, the elderly and Indigenous populations are especially vulnerable due to a combination of factors, including gendered divisions of paid and/or unpaid labour, as well as barriers in access to information, skills, services or resources (Bose, 2017; Thomas et al., 2019b; Anderson and Singh, 2020; Adzawla and Baumüller, 2021) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Climate change also could increase income inequality between countries (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Climate change will pose severe risks in terms of increasing the number of undernourished people, affecting tens to hundreds of million people under High vulnerability and High warming, particularly among low- income populations in developing countries (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Extreme weather events will increase risks of undernutrition even on a regional scale, via spikes in food price and reduced income (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Climate change risks of micronutrient deficiency will become severe in high-vulnerability development pathways and in the absence of societal adaptation, leading to hundreds of millions of additional people lacking key nutrients for atmospheric CO 2 levels above 500 ppm (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Regular human mobility will continue regardless of climate change, but mobility-related risks will increase with warming, notably in densely populated hazard-prone regions, in small islands and low-lying coastal zones, and among populations with limited coping capacity (RKR-A; Section CCP2.2.2; Chapter 7) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Although climate-driven human mobility generally does not increase risks to peace (medium confidence), armed conflict is a major driver of forced displacement (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Expert elicitation estimates that 4°C warming above pre-industrial levels will have severe and widespread effects on armed conflict with 26% probability, assuming no change from present levels in non- climatic drivers (Mach et al., 2019). That judgement refers to impacts that exceed the threshold for severity considered here, suggesting that global warming of 4°C would produce severe risks to peace under present societal conditions (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: low)
A larger empirical literature offers indirect evidence that climate change may produce severe risks to peace within this century by demonstrating how climate variability and extremes affect contemporary conflict dynamics, especially in contexts marked by low economic development, high economic dependence on climate-sensitive activities, high or increasing social marginalisation, and fragile governance (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
There is high agreement that even moderate levels of future SLR will severely amplify involuntary migration and displacement in small islands and densely populated low-lying coastal areas in the absence of appropriate adaptive responses (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
A wide range of climate change impacts depend strongly on development pathway (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Studies are increasingly going beyond exposure to incorporate future vulnerability, finding that it is often the dominant determinant of risk (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Future risk in these areas is heavily driven by climate change but also greatly depends on past, current and future socioeconomic changes which influence future trends in exposure, vulnerability and adaptive capacity of natural and human systems (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
From a risk perspective, trends over the past decades have been unfavourable for many deltas, as most of them have experienced a simultaneous intensification of hazards, rise in exposure and stagnation or only limited reduction in vulnerability, particularly in low-income countries (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
The combined effects of local subsidence and GMSL rise result in a significant increase in the potential for inundation of low-lying deltas across all RCPs, with some variation according to regional sea level change rates, without significant further adaptation measures (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
However, case study research from individual deltas suggests that delta populations, particularly those with agriculture-based livelihoods, have seen more limited vulnerability reduction due in particular to the impacts of environmental hazards, stress and disasters (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Cooling caused by SRM would increase the global land and ocean CO 2 sinks (medium confidence), but this would not stop CO 2 from increasing in the atmosphere or affect the resulting ocean acidification under continued anthropogenic emissions (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
A gradual phase-out of SRM combined with emission reduction and CDR could avoid these termination effects (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Aligning climate change adaptation to the SDGs could bring potential co-benefits and increased efficiency in funding, and reduce the gap between adaptation planning and implementation (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
From Figure 16.12, aside from SDG13 (climate action), the strongest connections and risk challenges are with zero hunger (SDG2), sustainable cities and communities (SDG11), life below water (SDG14), decent work and economic growth (SDG8), no poverty (SDG1), clean water and sanitation (SDG6) and good health and well-being (SDG3) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Other SDGs have strong linkages with specific RKRs, for example, terrestrial and marine ecosystems with life on land (SDG15); infrastructure (RKR-C) with industry, innovation and infrastructure (SDG9) and affordable and clean energy (SDG7); living standards (RKR-D) with gender equality (SDG5); and peace and human mobility (RKR-H) with peace, justice and strong institutions (SDG 16) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
The greatest linkages and effects on the SDGs will be due to risks to water (RKR-G), living standards (RKR-D), coastal socio-ecological systems (RKR-A) and peace and human mobility (RKR-H) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)