IPCC Sixth Assessment Report

[7] The Summary for Policymakers (SPM) document was drafted by scientists and agreed to line-by-line by the 195 governments in the IPCC during the five days leading up to 6 August 2021.

[2] In a front-page story, The Guardian described the report as "its starkest warning yet" of "major inevitable and irreversible climate changes",[9] a theme echoed by many newspapers around the world.

In addition, an interactive atlas was made "for a flexible spatial and temporal analysis of both data-driven climate change information and assessment findings in the report".

[21] Extreme weather is expected to increase in line with temperature, and compound effects (such as heat and drought together) may impact more on society.

[21] The report includes a major change from previous IPCC in the ability of scientists to attribute specific extreme weather events.

[22]: SPM-15 The frequency, and the intensity of such events will considerably increase with warming, as described in the following table:[22]: SPM-18 The second part of the report, a contribution of working group II (WGII), was published on 28 February 2022.

[30] Topics examined included biodiversity loss, migration, risks to urban and rural activities, human health, food security, water scarcity, and energy.

It also assesses ways to address these risks and highlights how climate resilient development can be part of a larger shift towards sustainability.

The impacts will include food insecurity, water scarcity, flooding, especially in coastal areas where most of the population lives due to higher than average sea level rise, and more powerful cyclones.

[38]: SPM.C.2.1 Similarly, adaptation actions like agroforestry, farm- and landscape diversification and urban agriculture can increase food availability, while at the same time improving sustainability.

The report reads, "Recent analyses, drawing on a range of lines of evidence, suggest that maintaining the resilience of biodiversity and ecosystem services at a global scale depends on effective and equitable conservation of approximately 30% to 50% of Earth's land, freshwater and ocean areas, including currently near-natural ecosystems.

"[31] The report was critical of technological approaches to carbon dioxide removal, instead indicating that urbanisation could help drive adoption of mitigation strategies such as public transport and renewable energy.

[35] The report also warns there are high risks associated with strategies such as solar radiation management; planting forests in unnatural locations; or "poorly implemented bioenergy, with or without carbon capture and storage".

The report states that such losses and damages are already widespread: droughts, floods and heatwaves are becoming more frequent, and a mass extinction is already underway.

[38]: SPM-32, 33, 35 Although the report's outlook is bleak, its conclusion argues that there is still time to limit warming to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) by drastic cuts to greenhouse gas emission, but such action must be taken immediately.

[35] Moreover, climate resilient development can have both adaptation and mitigation benefits, but it requires international cooperation and collaborations with local communities and organisations.

[40] The report uses some new approaches like to include different social aspects, the participation of youth, indigenous people, cities, businesses in the solution.

[42] According to the report demand side mitigation measures can reduce GHG emissions by 40–70% by the year 2050 compared to scenarios in which countries will fulfill its national pledges given before 2020.

Modelled mitigation strategies to achieve these reductions include transitioning from fossil fuels without CCS to very low- or zero-carbon energy sources, such as renewables or fossil fuels with CCS, demand side measures and improving efficiency, reducing non-CO2 emissions, and deploying carbon dioxide removal (CDR) methods to counterbalance residual GHG emissions".

With full scale mitigation action the emissions of cities could be brought down to near zero, with the worst-case scenario assuming a non-mitigatable remainder of 3 GtCO2-eq.

City planning, supporting mixed use of space, transit, walking, cycling and sharing vehicles can reduce urban emissions by 23–26%.

For example, the rate of deforestation slowed after 2010 and the total forest cover increased in the latest years due to reforestation in Europe, Asia and North America.

[4][50] Some scientists are describing these extreme weather events as clear gaps in the models used for writing the report, with the lived experience proving more severe than the consensus science.

[50][51] After publication of the Working Group 1 report, EU Vice President Frans Timmermans said that it is not too late to prevent runaway climate change.

[54] The United States special presidential envoy for climate, John Kerry, said about the Working Group 2 report: "We have seen the increase in climate-fuelled extreme events, and the damage that is left behind – lives lost and livelihoods ruined.

[57] Climate journalist Amy Westervelt reacting to the report, described this finding as one of the most radical, debunking a common refrain by energy poverty advocates, that development requires use of fossil fuels.

[58] Responding to the Working Group 2 report, he called it "an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership"[30] and "the facts are undeniable ... the world's biggest polluters are guilty of arson of our only home.

For example, some aspects of the production can prevent African scholars from participating, such as publication requirements and being an expert reviewer before joining the panel of contributors.