10 New Insights in Climate Science for 2022

During COP27, convened by the international networks Future Earth, The Earth League, World Climate Research Programme(WCRP), scientists from around the world released the annual 10 New Insights in Climate Science report with UNFCCC Executive Secretary Mr. Simon Stiell.

The report reviews and synthesises pressing climate change research since 2021, highlighting ‘the complex interactions between climate change and other drivers of risk, such as conflicts, pandemics, food crises and underlying development challenges’.

The topics covered provide key focus areas for negotiators at COP27, from adaptation and mitigation, to the intersections of climate and food systems, security, and finance:

1. Questioning the myth of endless adaptation
2. Vulnerability hotspots cluster in ‘regions at risk’
3. New threats on the horizon from climate-health interactions
4. Climate mobility: From evidence to anticipatory action
5. Human security requires climate security
6. Sustainable land use is essential to meeting climate targets
7. Private sustainable finance practices are failing to catalyse deep transitions
8. Loss and Damage: The urgent planetary imperative
9. Inclusive decision-making for climate-resilient development
10. Breaking down structural barriers and unsustainable lock-ins

In the video below, Professor Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Co-Chair, Advisory Committee of Future Earth, and Co-Chair of the Earth League, gives a more detailed overview of the 10 insights.

Decision makers must recognise the interconnectedness of biophysical-social challenges, and that the most impactful responses are not siloed. Substantially shifting the allocation of capital and land use towards meaningful mitigation, enacting robust and coordinated global policy responses for adaptation, loss and damage, as well as deconstructing the barriers to just climate action are some of the approaches identified within the report to accelerate reaching Paris Agreement Goals.

_–Prof. Chukwumerije Okereke, Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike, Nigeria–