The European solar industry is fighting for market shares: Chinese modules are being sold at dumping prices, and US manufacturers are also receiving high subsidies. In Europe, on the other hand, there is no new funding. Nico Beckert analyzes why many experts consider cheap Chinese modules a blessing and subsidies the wrong path and how dependence on China could still be reduced.
To mark International Women’s Day on March 8, we analyze strategies for a feminist climate policy and show how specific projects can contribute to gender equality. There is still room for improvement not only in the Global South but also in Europe.
Our chart of the week looks at the falling prices in EU emissions trading and what they mean for companies. And today’s opinion piece by former IPCC lead author Hans-Otto Pörtner explains why the IPCC needs a new direction. Among other things, he calls for shorter reporting cycles to allow a quicker response to relevant issues.
The European solar industry is reeling. Chinese competitors are flooding the global market with state-subsidized modules at dumping prices, and European suppliers are increasingly losing competitiveness due to falling prices. Europe’s biggest manufacturer, Meyer Burger, threatens to relocate to the United States, which offers attractive subsidies. German manufacturers are also pleading with the German government for help. If they don’t receive help soon, they, too, could go out of business.
The EU Commission has no intention of helping out, either. As EU Commissioners recently made clear, it has no plans for trade restrictions against Chinese modules or new subsidies. Instead, the Commission shifts responsibility to the member states. The goals are ambitious, after all: The EU member states aim to develop a European solar industry that can cover 40 percent of domestic demand by 2030 with their Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA) – at all stages of the value chain. The idea is to reduce dependence on China, which currently accounts for 80 to 95 percent of global production along the entire value chain.
Experts believe that the 40 percent target is neither realistic nor sensible. There is neither the will to invest in new plants nor the necessary incentives for investment to achieve the 40 percent target, Antoine Vagneur-Jones, solar expert at the analysis company BloombergNEF, told Table.Briefings. “Building solar plants in Europe is about three to four times more expensive than in China,” says Vagneur-Jones.
According to the EU Commission’s optimistic estimates, developing an industry with the necessary capacities would cost 7.5 billion euros. The association Solar Power Europe, on the other hand, assumes that investments of 30 billion euros would be required and that these would have to be made by 2025, according to Marie Tamba, Senior Research Analyst at Rhodium Group.
In order to build up a significant industry, Europe would have to “massively subsidize the investments and operating costs of solar manufacturers,” says Jenny Chase, a long-time solar analyst at BloombergNEF, in an interview with Table.Briefings. She estimates Meyer Burger’s production costs at over 40 US cents per watt, while the market price is only just over 11 US cents. Chase expressed regret: Meyer Burger has a lot of experience. It would be a “heavy blow if they withdrew.”
Analysts from the think tank Bruegel doubt that the 40 percent target makes sense at all. “Full manufacturing processes involve energy and capital-intensive investment where Europe has no advantage,” the analysts write. For example, they cite the energy-intensive production of polysilicon, the raw material for solar cells. “The global solar market, for example, is extraordinarily oversupplied and there is no climate benefit from subsidizing extra production today,” conclude the Bruegel analysts. Chase also has doubts: “The solar industry is a difficult business segment. The competition is brutal.” The newest plants have the best technology and therefore a competitive advantage. Older manufacturers have major disadvantages because the equipment is quickly outdated.
Chase estimates that the energy transition in the solar energy sector would become “perhaps 50 percent” more expensive if Europe were to significantly reduce its dependence on Chinese modules. The BloombergNEF expert believes that this is unlikely to happen.
Analysts at energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie also expect a massive price increase. In the last decade, solar module costs have fallen by 85 percent. “China’s clean-tech manufacturing capacity expansion has been at the heart of this story,” they write in a recent analysis. “Without China at the table, Aggressive cost reductions we have become accustomed to are over.” According to a 2022 Nature study, the globalized solar supply chain saved Germany around seven billion US dollars alone between 2008 and 2020.
Even if other risks associated with a high level of dependence on China are taken into account, “the advantages of cheap imports outweigh the risks for the solar industry for the time being,” says Tobias Gehrke, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank. “The combined security and economic risks are probably too small to iron out the disadvantage of Europe’s lack of competitiveness,” says the analyst and expert on competition between the major powers in the global economy.
Antoine Vagneur-Jones from BloombergNEF summarizes the situation: “The overcapacities in the solar sector are good for the energy transition: They make everything cheaper. But they weaken the economic arguments in favor of building a solar industry.”
The Bruegel analysts suggest stockpiling solar modules and diversifying trade relations as a way of becoming less dependent on China. For example, the United States and India are currently building up their own solar industries. According to Bruegel analysts, stocks of around 30 percent of market demand could lead to a certain flexibility in case China abruptly stopped selling modules. “Import diversification is a more powerful and efficient tool than import substitution,” they write.
However, Chase disagrees. If the EU states wanted to import more from the USA or India, they would have to “pay more for inferior products than for those from China.” Her colleague Antoine Vagneur-Jones points out that US manufacturers also feel the effects of overcapacity and that the first announced investments have already been canceled – despite US subsidies. BloombergNEF estimates that only around half of the announced US solar investments totaling 60 gigawatts for 2024 will actually be built. Ironically, almost a quarter of the planned investment comes from Chinese manufacturers, who are now also receiving US subsidies. India could become more of an exporter to Europe, says Elissa Pierce, Research Associate at energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. “At a price of 20 US cents per watt, Indian modules are more attractive to European buyers than US modules,” says the analyst. US modules are currently priced at 35 cents per watt.
However, there is a small glimmer of hope for Meyer Burger’s solar module plant in Germany. The company “1Komma5°,” a provider of solar systems, heat pumps, electricity storage systems and wallboxes, apparently wants to take over the production facilities should Meyer Burger actually abandon the plant.
A new legal option from the Net-Zero Industry Act would allow the German government to approve new plants quickly in special acceleration areas, in which private investors would be relieved of bureaucracy. “The German government must invest to make Germany attractive again for the manufacturing industry, for example by setting up Net-Zero Acceleration Valleys,” says Christian Ehler, CDU MEP, who negotiated the NZIA for Parliament.
As a result of socialization and gender roles, climate change affects women and men differently. This is true not only in the Global South but also in Europe. For instance, women shoulder most of the formal and informal care work. Climate change places even greater pressure on healthcare systems, leading to even more, often precarious or unpaid work for women. At the same time, they earn less on average, meaning they cannot invest in private preventive measures to the same extent as men. These are the findings of the “A Feminist Green Deal” study by the social democratic Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
Moreover, politics is not gender-neutral; not everyone benefits equally from certain climate action measures. Katharina Wiese from the European Environmental Bureau explains this using mobility as an example: “Women and men have different mobility needs and patterns that are linked to structural inequalities.” As women are less likely to own cars and use public transport more often, they benefit less from subsidies for electric cars, for example. Therefore, a feminist climate policy should invest much more in the expansion of public transport, says Wiese. Women also tend to be economically disadvantaged: Women are less likely to benefit from future jobs in the renewables sector, for example. Even in the photovoltaic industry, which employs the most women, women hold only 13 percent of management positions worldwide. Women are also less likely to have access to climate financing.
“If climate policies are gender blind, they are likely to perpetuate or even deepen gender injustice,” the FES study states. This is why climate change must be understood as a complex socio-economic crisis, says Valeria Peláez Cardona from Women Engage for a Common Future. “Contrary to what many people think, feminist climate policy is not just policy for women,” she says. Ideally, feminist politics reduces injustices and benefits for the general public – everyone benefits from better local transport, for example.
The idea of including gender equality in climate policy has now arrived in the mainstream, at least in theory. In Germany, two ministries have feminist strategies that are related to climate: Last year, the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) published a guideline for “Feminist Development Policy,” and the Federal Foreign Office published the guideline “Shaping Feminist Foreign Policy.” According to the BMZ, women should be involved in “decision-making processes and their access to climate funds should be simplified.” The Federal Foreign Office declared that it intends to focus on gender budgeting in the future, i.e., taking gender equality aspects into account when planning budgets.
Since their publication, there has been little implementation in the form of actual projects. Katharina Wiese considers the two guidelines to be a good start. However, she says there have not been enough concrete measures and goals.
“However, there are good examples of feminist climate policy at the local and regional level,” says Wiese. These can serve as role models for governments, other public actors or companies. Wiese lists them:
The Gender Just Climate Solutions Awards honor other good examples. The awards recognize projects from the Global South that could be implemented at a higher level.
Last year, they went to:
Valeria Peláez also mentions an initiative that has impressed her personally: In many regions of the world, women do not have the right to land titles, which means they are often unable to implement their own climate action measures, such as installing a solar system, a water storage tank or conserving the forest on it. Dorothée Lisenga has worked with the Coalition des Femmes Leaders pour l’Environnement et le Développement Durable in the Democratic Republic of Congo to ensure that women in various regions of the country have access to land titles.
“Social justice – and therefore gender justice – is part of the fight against climate change,” Wiese summarizes. In her view, it is not a “nice-to-have” but essential. Otherwise, climate action might be in vain.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is not a purely scientific body but has relied on close cooperation between science and politics since its inception in 1988. This was and is its strength. But in times of pressing intensification in the climate and species conservation crisis, it is increasingly becoming a weakness.
All too often, political calculations, which take precedence over scientific findings, slow down and prevent the IPCC from working efficiently. The Panel needs to reform its internal processes, the selection of its work projects and less politically motivated influence. Otherwise, it could fall behind current developments and no longer be able to provide policy advice for timely action.
Scientists and government delegations work together in the IPCC’s General Assembly, and decisions are based on consensus. However, very few outsiders are probably aware of how far the political influence of individual actors extends:
This close cooperation between politics and science has been the strength of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the past. All governments accept its statements by unanimously adopting the summary of a working group or special report. This means that no decision-maker can later claim that they were unaware of the extent and consequences of climate change.
However, the results of COP28 have once again shown that governments’ delaying strategies are increasingly preventing the implementation of the IPCC’s time-critical scientific findings. Almost all major fossil fuel-producing countries attempt to deny or ignore the close link between the production and use of fossil fuels and the dangerous progression of climate change. Producing countries with a one-sided economic dependency have a long tradition of resistance in the UNFCCC and IPCC, but countries with continued high coal consumption or Western countries with oil and gas production are not exempt from this either.
In times of dramatically increasing and mutually compounding environmental crises, old mindsets in the political leadership of many countries are also hindering the work and effectiveness of the IPCC. One example:
Since the publication of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report at the latest, it has become clear that we must harmonize the interests of climate, nature and people if we want to find common, complementary ways out of the life-threatening climate and biodiversity crises and embark on the path of sustainable, climate-resilient development. However, politicians are struggling to abandon the dogma of unchecked economic growth.
Instead, species and climate protection are increasingly being played against each other: For example, by prioritizing the expansion of renewables and strategically planning new, land-hungry ideas for storing CO2 from biomass production and combustion without reserving the necessary room for nature and biodiversity.
Politicians often do not or only partially recognize that climate action and nature conservation must be paramount if we want to preserve our way of life. Short-term, often economically motivated interests dominate. They delay the technological transformation for the sake of climate-damaging emissions and the continued use of fossil fuels. Even in cases of doubt and acute crises under increasing time pressure, fossil fuels are used, sometimes without any proven necessity, as the current debate on the German government’s power plant strategy planning shows.
Yet there can be no alternative to a timely transformation of our society, economy and lifestyles. We are currently a long way from achieving the sustainability targets we have set ourselves for 2030. Greenhouse gas emissions, temperatures and extreme weather are constantly reaching new highs, and more than one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction.
Despite all this, at the first IPCC plenary meeting in the seventh assessment period in Istanbul in January, governments were unable to agree on reports that promote timely decisions and compliance with the Paris climate targets.
A faster reaction time of the IPCC would include, for example:
If the IPCC is to make effective recommendations, it needs the freedom to break new ground. Politicians must support this freedom and important reforms by allowing greater flexibility in setting topics and following scientific priorities for crisis management.
As part of the reforms, for example, it would be conceivable:
After the decisions made in Istanbul, the Bureau is once again faced with the task of preparing a special report, a comprehensive status report with three working group reports and a synthesis report. However, the ever-increasing impact of climate change and the associated restrictions on sustainable development will continue to advance in parallel and change the world. The IPCC is in danger of being unable to respond adequately to these challenges.
Hans-Otto Pörtner is Professor of Integrative Ecophysiology at the Alfred Wegener Institute and the University of Bremen. He has contributed as author and coordinating lead author to various IPCC Assessment Reports and Special Reports. In the Panel’s sixth reporting period, Pörtner co-chaired Working Group II, which deals with the impacts of climate change and adaptation options.
The European solar industry is fighting for market shares: Chinese modules are being sold at dumping prices, and US manufacturers are also receiving high subsidies. In Europe, on the other hand, there is no new funding. Nico Beckert analyzes why many experts consider cheap Chinese modules a blessing and subsidies the wrong path and how dependence on China could still be reduced.
To mark International Women’s Day on March 8, we analyze strategies for a feminist climate policy and show how specific projects can contribute to gender equality. There is still room for improvement not only in the Global South but also in Europe.
Our chart of the week looks at the falling prices in EU emissions trading and what they mean for companies. And today’s opinion piece by former IPCC lead author Hans-Otto Pörtner explains why the IPCC needs a new direction. Among other things, he calls for shorter reporting cycles to allow a quicker response to relevant issues.
The European solar industry is reeling. Chinese competitors are flooding the global market with state-subsidized modules at dumping prices, and European suppliers are increasingly losing competitiveness due to falling prices. Europe’s biggest manufacturer, Meyer Burger, threatens to relocate to the United States, which offers attractive subsidies. German manufacturers are also pleading with the German government for help. If they don’t receive help soon, they, too, could go out of business.
The EU Commission has no intention of helping out, either. As EU Commissioners recently made clear, it has no plans for trade restrictions against Chinese modules or new subsidies. Instead, the Commission shifts responsibility to the member states. The goals are ambitious, after all: The EU member states aim to develop a European solar industry that can cover 40 percent of domestic demand by 2030 with their Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA) – at all stages of the value chain. The idea is to reduce dependence on China, which currently accounts for 80 to 95 percent of global production along the entire value chain.
Experts believe that the 40 percent target is neither realistic nor sensible. There is neither the will to invest in new plants nor the necessary incentives for investment to achieve the 40 percent target, Antoine Vagneur-Jones, solar expert at the analysis company BloombergNEF, told Table.Briefings. “Building solar plants in Europe is about three to four times more expensive than in China,” says Vagneur-Jones.
According to the EU Commission’s optimistic estimates, developing an industry with the necessary capacities would cost 7.5 billion euros. The association Solar Power Europe, on the other hand, assumes that investments of 30 billion euros would be required and that these would have to be made by 2025, according to Marie Tamba, Senior Research Analyst at Rhodium Group.
In order to build up a significant industry, Europe would have to “massively subsidize the investments and operating costs of solar manufacturers,” says Jenny Chase, a long-time solar analyst at BloombergNEF, in an interview with Table.Briefings. She estimates Meyer Burger’s production costs at over 40 US cents per watt, while the market price is only just over 11 US cents. Chase expressed regret: Meyer Burger has a lot of experience. It would be a “heavy blow if they withdrew.”
Analysts from the think tank Bruegel doubt that the 40 percent target makes sense at all. “Full manufacturing processes involve energy and capital-intensive investment where Europe has no advantage,” the analysts write. For example, they cite the energy-intensive production of polysilicon, the raw material for solar cells. “The global solar market, for example, is extraordinarily oversupplied and there is no climate benefit from subsidizing extra production today,” conclude the Bruegel analysts. Chase also has doubts: “The solar industry is a difficult business segment. The competition is brutal.” The newest plants have the best technology and therefore a competitive advantage. Older manufacturers have major disadvantages because the equipment is quickly outdated.
Chase estimates that the energy transition in the solar energy sector would become “perhaps 50 percent” more expensive if Europe were to significantly reduce its dependence on Chinese modules. The BloombergNEF expert believes that this is unlikely to happen.
Analysts at energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie also expect a massive price increase. In the last decade, solar module costs have fallen by 85 percent. “China’s clean-tech manufacturing capacity expansion has been at the heart of this story,” they write in a recent analysis. “Without China at the table, Aggressive cost reductions we have become accustomed to are over.” According to a 2022 Nature study, the globalized solar supply chain saved Germany around seven billion US dollars alone between 2008 and 2020.
Even if other risks associated with a high level of dependence on China are taken into account, “the advantages of cheap imports outweigh the risks for the solar industry for the time being,” says Tobias Gehrke, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank. “The combined security and economic risks are probably too small to iron out the disadvantage of Europe’s lack of competitiveness,” says the analyst and expert on competition between the major powers in the global economy.
Antoine Vagneur-Jones from BloombergNEF summarizes the situation: “The overcapacities in the solar sector are good for the energy transition: They make everything cheaper. But they weaken the economic arguments in favor of building a solar industry.”
The Bruegel analysts suggest stockpiling solar modules and diversifying trade relations as a way of becoming less dependent on China. For example, the United States and India are currently building up their own solar industries. According to Bruegel analysts, stocks of around 30 percent of market demand could lead to a certain flexibility in case China abruptly stopped selling modules. “Import diversification is a more powerful and efficient tool than import substitution,” they write.
However, Chase disagrees. If the EU states wanted to import more from the USA or India, they would have to “pay more for inferior products than for those from China.” Her colleague Antoine Vagneur-Jones points out that US manufacturers also feel the effects of overcapacity and that the first announced investments have already been canceled – despite US subsidies. BloombergNEF estimates that only around half of the announced US solar investments totaling 60 gigawatts for 2024 will actually be built. Ironically, almost a quarter of the planned investment comes from Chinese manufacturers, who are now also receiving US subsidies. India could become more of an exporter to Europe, says Elissa Pierce, Research Associate at energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. “At a price of 20 US cents per watt, Indian modules are more attractive to European buyers than US modules,” says the analyst. US modules are currently priced at 35 cents per watt.
However, there is a small glimmer of hope for Meyer Burger’s solar module plant in Germany. The company “1Komma5°,” a provider of solar systems, heat pumps, electricity storage systems and wallboxes, apparently wants to take over the production facilities should Meyer Burger actually abandon the plant.
A new legal option from the Net-Zero Industry Act would allow the German government to approve new plants quickly in special acceleration areas, in which private investors would be relieved of bureaucracy. “The German government must invest to make Germany attractive again for the manufacturing industry, for example by setting up Net-Zero Acceleration Valleys,” says Christian Ehler, CDU MEP, who negotiated the NZIA for Parliament.
As a result of socialization and gender roles, climate change affects women and men differently. This is true not only in the Global South but also in Europe. For instance, women shoulder most of the formal and informal care work. Climate change places even greater pressure on healthcare systems, leading to even more, often precarious or unpaid work for women. At the same time, they earn less on average, meaning they cannot invest in private preventive measures to the same extent as men. These are the findings of the “A Feminist Green Deal” study by the social democratic Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
Moreover, politics is not gender-neutral; not everyone benefits equally from certain climate action measures. Katharina Wiese from the European Environmental Bureau explains this using mobility as an example: “Women and men have different mobility needs and patterns that are linked to structural inequalities.” As women are less likely to own cars and use public transport more often, they benefit less from subsidies for electric cars, for example. Therefore, a feminist climate policy should invest much more in the expansion of public transport, says Wiese. Women also tend to be economically disadvantaged: Women are less likely to benefit from future jobs in the renewables sector, for example. Even in the photovoltaic industry, which employs the most women, women hold only 13 percent of management positions worldwide. Women are also less likely to have access to climate financing.
“If climate policies are gender blind, they are likely to perpetuate or even deepen gender injustice,” the FES study states. This is why climate change must be understood as a complex socio-economic crisis, says Valeria Peláez Cardona from Women Engage for a Common Future. “Contrary to what many people think, feminist climate policy is not just policy for women,” she says. Ideally, feminist politics reduces injustices and benefits for the general public – everyone benefits from better local transport, for example.
The idea of including gender equality in climate policy has now arrived in the mainstream, at least in theory. In Germany, two ministries have feminist strategies that are related to climate: Last year, the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) published a guideline for “Feminist Development Policy,” and the Federal Foreign Office published the guideline “Shaping Feminist Foreign Policy.” According to the BMZ, women should be involved in “decision-making processes and their access to climate funds should be simplified.” The Federal Foreign Office declared that it intends to focus on gender budgeting in the future, i.e., taking gender equality aspects into account when planning budgets.
Since their publication, there has been little implementation in the form of actual projects. Katharina Wiese considers the two guidelines to be a good start. However, she says there have not been enough concrete measures and goals.
“However, there are good examples of feminist climate policy at the local and regional level,” says Wiese. These can serve as role models for governments, other public actors or companies. Wiese lists them:
The Gender Just Climate Solutions Awards honor other good examples. The awards recognize projects from the Global South that could be implemented at a higher level.
Last year, they went to:
Valeria Peláez also mentions an initiative that has impressed her personally: In many regions of the world, women do not have the right to land titles, which means they are often unable to implement their own climate action measures, such as installing a solar system, a water storage tank or conserving the forest on it. Dorothée Lisenga has worked with the Coalition des Femmes Leaders pour l’Environnement et le Développement Durable in the Democratic Republic of Congo to ensure that women in various regions of the country have access to land titles.
“Social justice – and therefore gender justice – is part of the fight against climate change,” Wiese summarizes. In her view, it is not a “nice-to-have” but essential. Otherwise, climate action might be in vain.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is not a purely scientific body but has relied on close cooperation between science and politics since its inception in 1988. This was and is its strength. But in times of pressing intensification in the climate and species conservation crisis, it is increasingly becoming a weakness.
All too often, political calculations, which take precedence over scientific findings, slow down and prevent the IPCC from working efficiently. The Panel needs to reform its internal processes, the selection of its work projects and less politically motivated influence. Otherwise, it could fall behind current developments and no longer be able to provide policy advice for timely action.
Scientists and government delegations work together in the IPCC’s General Assembly, and decisions are based on consensus. However, very few outsiders are probably aware of how far the political influence of individual actors extends:
This close cooperation between politics and science has been the strength of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the past. All governments accept its statements by unanimously adopting the summary of a working group or special report. This means that no decision-maker can later claim that they were unaware of the extent and consequences of climate change.
However, the results of COP28 have once again shown that governments’ delaying strategies are increasingly preventing the implementation of the IPCC’s time-critical scientific findings. Almost all major fossil fuel-producing countries attempt to deny or ignore the close link between the production and use of fossil fuels and the dangerous progression of climate change. Producing countries with a one-sided economic dependency have a long tradition of resistance in the UNFCCC and IPCC, but countries with continued high coal consumption or Western countries with oil and gas production are not exempt from this either.
In times of dramatically increasing and mutually compounding environmental crises, old mindsets in the political leadership of many countries are also hindering the work and effectiveness of the IPCC. One example:
Since the publication of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report at the latest, it has become clear that we must harmonize the interests of climate, nature and people if we want to find common, complementary ways out of the life-threatening climate and biodiversity crises and embark on the path of sustainable, climate-resilient development. However, politicians are struggling to abandon the dogma of unchecked economic growth.
Instead, species and climate protection are increasingly being played against each other: For example, by prioritizing the expansion of renewables and strategically planning new, land-hungry ideas for storing CO2 from biomass production and combustion without reserving the necessary room for nature and biodiversity.
Politicians often do not or only partially recognize that climate action and nature conservation must be paramount if we want to preserve our way of life. Short-term, often economically motivated interests dominate. They delay the technological transformation for the sake of climate-damaging emissions and the continued use of fossil fuels. Even in cases of doubt and acute crises under increasing time pressure, fossil fuels are used, sometimes without any proven necessity, as the current debate on the German government’s power plant strategy planning shows.
Yet there can be no alternative to a timely transformation of our society, economy and lifestyles. We are currently a long way from achieving the sustainability targets we have set ourselves for 2030. Greenhouse gas emissions, temperatures and extreme weather are constantly reaching new highs, and more than one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction.
Despite all this, at the first IPCC plenary meeting in the seventh assessment period in Istanbul in January, governments were unable to agree on reports that promote timely decisions and compliance with the Paris climate targets.
A faster reaction time of the IPCC would include, for example:
If the IPCC is to make effective recommendations, it needs the freedom to break new ground. Politicians must support this freedom and important reforms by allowing greater flexibility in setting topics and following scientific priorities for crisis management.
As part of the reforms, for example, it would be conceivable:
After the decisions made in Istanbul, the Bureau is once again faced with the task of preparing a special report, a comprehensive status report with three working group reports and a synthesis report. However, the ever-increasing impact of climate change and the associated restrictions on sustainable development will continue to advance in parallel and change the world. The IPCC is in danger of being unable to respond adequately to these challenges.
Hans-Otto Pörtner is Professor of Integrative Ecophysiology at the Alfred Wegener Institute and the University of Bremen. He has contributed as author and coordinating lead author to various IPCC Assessment Reports and Special Reports. In the Panel’s sixth reporting period, Pörtner co-chaired Working Group II, which deals with the impacts of climate change and adaptation options.
