Today, the European Parliament debated the Sixth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), following the statement by European Commission vice-president, Frans Timmermans. The S&D Group reiterates its deep concern for the situation at a global level that is becoming more and more drastic.

The IPCC report clearly demands urgent measures to limit global warming to 1.5°C, and S&Ds calls on EU institutions, member states and the international community to adopt radical and immediate actions to stop climate change.

S&D coordinator in the environment committee, Tiemo Wölken, commented:

“With the third Working Group report on the ‘Mitigation of Climate Change’ just published today, we now have all the findings we need: Our global CO2 budget will be exhausted in the next 10 years if we do not manage to finally reduce global emissions as soon as possible. It is therefore not admissible to extend the lifetime of coal-fired power plants or to build new ones.

“We already know, from the first report, that we must limit warming to 1.5°C, and we know from the second report that going beyond 1.5°C warming could mean that over 3 billion people will lose their livelihoods.

“We must improve in all areas; above all we must manage to phase out fossil fuels as quickly as possible and radically change the way we use land.

“Hence, growing even more energy crops and animal feed is not the remedy to Putin’s war, but above all, such bogus solutions plunge us even deeper into the climate crisis.”

Note for editors:

The Sixth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is composed of three working group reports: the first report on ‘The Physical Science Basis’, published in 2021, the second report on ‘Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’, published in February 2022, and the third report on the ‘Mitigation of Climate Change’, published today.