Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, spoke on the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, which offers a current view of the state of scientific knowledge in regarding climate change, according to the IPCC website.
Pachauri’s talk on the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment is part of a lecture series focused on climate change negotiations leading up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in December 2015.
The series is sponsored by the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, the School of Global and International Studies and the World Resources Institute.
The last installment of IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, to be completed by the end of October , will be presented at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, according to the IPCC website.
“Dr. Pachauri coming and speaking, as the chair of the IPCC, is a good kickoff for this entire climate change series of talks, because what he (said) is based on the studies and the latest report from the IPCC, which came out in March of this year and which has, once again, rung the bell, the danger that faces humankind if we do not tackle the question of climate change,” said Rajendra Abhyankar, professor of practice in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and former ambassador of India to the European Union.
Pachauri revealed that, by the end of this century, the increase in temperate must be limited to two degrees Celsius, he said.
“It is going to be absolutely essential that we not only bring down emissions of greenhouse gases to zero by the end of this century, but below zero,” Pachauri added.
If the emissions of greenhouse gases are not brought down to zero and the increase in temperature is not limited to two degrees Celsius by the end of the century, humans will continue to experience the effects of a warming atmosphere, warming oceans and melting of snow and ice, Pachauri said.
The continued — and this time, unrectifiable — existence of extreme perspiration events, heat waves, droughts, human displacement, loss of food sources and introduction of diseases will result.
Pachauri stressed the importance of a global movement in the effort to prevent climate change.
“What we really need is universal understanding of the fact that we are all members of spaceship Earth, and there’s no other planet that we can go to,” Pachauri said.
An increase in knowledge leads to a growth in positive change, Pachauri said. In addition to the importance of a global movement, he emphasized the role of higher education in the effort to prevent climate change.
“I think what we really need is initiatives by the leaders of our various states of the world, political leaders and, I would say most importantly, institutions like (IU) to create this sense of universal responsibility by which we realize that each one of us is part of the same climate,” Pachauri said.
