IPCC chairman rebukes exaggerated climate alarm

The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has welcomed the rebuke of exaggerated climate hype and alarm by Professor Jim Skea, the new Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

In interviews with German media, Skea said it is wrong and misleading for climate activists to imply that temperature increases of 1.5°C posed an existential threat to humanity.

In the eyes of many climate activists, limiting warming to 1.5°C has become the decisive benchmark for ‘saving the planet’. In 2018, the IPCC warned that humanity had 12 years to prevent a global climate catastrophe if global warming could not be limited to 1.5°C.

This triggered a wave of new organisations to be set up and various climate activists, such as Greta Thunberg, to speak out in an attempt to raise awareness. However, these speeches were often dramatic and exaggerated.

“The world won’t end if it warms by more than 1.5 degrees,” Skea told Der Spiegel. “If you constantly communicate the message that we are all doomed to extinction, then that paralyses people and prevents them from taking the necessary steps to get a grip on climate change,” he said.

This comes as Skea predicted the world would exceed the global warming target of 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, adding that governments around the world had failed to adopt sufficiently ambitious policies.

Dr Benny Peiser, GWPF Director, welcomed the IPCC message, labelling it a “breath of fresh air and a welcome intervention”.

“As European governments have begun to pause, water down and roll back net zero pledges and plans, developing nations have no intention to abandon their relentless use of coal, oil and gas. The new IPCC chairman seems to have accepted that the 1.5°C climate threshold and its net zero policy implications are no longer politically viable,” Peiser said.

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