6.3 Responses to climate change

Robust findings

Some planned adaptation (of human activities) is occurring now; more extensive adaptation is required to reduce vulnerability to climate change. {WGII 17.ES, 20.5, Table 20.6, SPM}

Unmitigated climate change would, in the long term, be likely to exceed the capacity of natural, managed and human systems to adapt. {WGII 20.7, SPM}

A wide range of mitigation options is currently available or projected to be available by 2030 in all sectors. The economic mitigation potential, at costs that range from net negative up to US$100/tCO₂-equivalent, is sufficient to offset the projected growth of global emissions or to reduce emissions to below current levels in 2030. {WGIII 11.3, SPM}

Many impacts can be reduced, delayed or avoided by mitigation. Mitigation efforts and investments over the next two to three decades will have a large impact on opportunities to achieve lower stabilisation levels. Delayed emissions reductions significantly constrain the opportunities to achieve lower stabilisation levels and increase the risk of more severe climate change impacts. {WGII SPM, WGIII SPM}

The range of stabilisation levels for GHG concentrations that have been assessed can be achieved by deployment of a portfolio of technologies that are currently available and those that are expected to be commercialised in coming decades, provided that appropriate and effective incentives are in place and barriers are removed. In addition, further RD&D would be required to improve the technical performance, reduce the costs and achieve social acceptability of new technologies. The lower the stabilisation levels, the greater the need for investment in new technologies during the next few decades. {WGIII 3.3, 3.4}

Making development more sustainable by changing development paths can make a major contribution to climate change mitigation and adaptation and to reducing vulnerability. {WGII 18.7, 20.3, SPM; WGIII 13.2, SPM}

Decisions about macro-economic and other policies that seem unrelated to climate change can significantly affect emissions. {WGIII 12.2}

Key uncertainties

Understanding of how development planners incorporate information about climate variability and change into their decisions is limited. This limits the integrated assessment of vulnerability. {WGII 18.8, 20.9}

The evolution and utilisation of adaptive and mitigative capacity depend on underlying socio-economic development pathways. {WGII 17.3, 17.4, 18.6, 19.4, 20.9}

Barriers, limits and costs of adaptation are not fully understood, partly because effective adaptation measures are highly dependent on specific geographical and climate risk factors as well as institutional, political and financial constraints. {WGII SPM}

Estimates of mitigation costs and potentials depend on assumptions about future socio-economic growth, technological change and consumption patterns. Uncertainty arises in particular from assumptions regarding the drivers of technology diffusion and the potential of long-term technology performance and cost improvements. Also little is known about the effects of changes in behaviour and lifestyles. {WGIII 3.3, 3.4, 11.3}

The effects of non-climate policies on emissions are poorly quantified. {WGIII 12.2}