Transition énergétique ?

Une bonne politique climatique repose sur une bonne science climatique. Et une bonne science climatique repose sur le Groupe d’experts intergouvernemental sur l’évolution du climat (GIEC*) depuis sa création par les gouvernements en 1988. Le GIEC est composé de dizaines de milliers de scientifiques issus de dizaines de pays, qui couvrent les multiples facettes du « pourquoi » et du « comment » du changement climatique. Il établit une ligne consensuelle dans des rapports (*) volumineux publiés tous les cinq ou six ans. Il a si bien rempli cette mission qu’il a reçu en 2007 le prix Nobel de la paix aux côtés de l’ancien vice-président Al Gore.

This article examines the technocentric bias that characterizes climate mitigation literature, focusing on the reports of the IPCC's Working Group III. This bias stems from structural features of the scientific field that prioritizes innovation, leading to the overrepresentation of technological solutions in climate research. Funding mechanisms further reinforce this tendency by incentivizing collaboration with industrial R&D, creating a self-reinforcing loop in which scientific authority and industrial interests converge. The IPCC's institutional positioning—as a policy-relevant yet politically cautious body—amplifies this dynamic by favoring allegedly “cost-effective” technological pathways that lack practical feasibility.

GIEC rapport - Changements climatique 2021 - rapport technique du 6ème rapport du GIEC du groupe 1 - en français

As an average citizen of the United States, one with no particular power over our political trajectory beyond my ability to vote and encourage others to vote, I have very little say in how our descent into a hotter, resource-depleted world will play out. This contrasts with how much I worry about that impending descent, its impact on my children and grandchildren, and its deep implications for the future of humanity writ large.

A novel tool for flexible spatial and temporal analyses of much of the observed and projected climate change information underpinning the Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report, including regional synthesis for Climatic Impact-Drivers (CIDs).

Summary for Policymakers. A Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Mitigation of Climate Change - Working Group III contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The new report evokes a mild sense of urgency, calling on governments to mobilise finance to accelerate the uptake of green technology. But its conclusions are far removed from a direct interpretation of the IPCC’s own carbon budgets (the total amount of CO₂ scientists estimate can be put into the atmosphere for a given temperature rise).

Humanity received a “final warning” Monday from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The bottom line of the Synthesis Report of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report is to “act now, or it’s too late,” the Guardian wrote. The scale of the emergency screams out from almost every page — climate change is already displacing and killing millions of people globally — but the report also provides what UN Secretary-General António Guterres called a roadmap for defusing the “climate time bomb.”

Valérie Masson-Delmotte est scientifique du climat. Depuis 2015, elle est co-présidente du Groupe d’experts intergouvernemental sur l’évolution du climat (Giec). Alors que le Giec vient de clore ce cycle avec la synthèse de tous les rapports publiés depuis 2018, la scientifique raconte à Vert les principales leçons de ce document majeur pour comprendre les bouleversements passés et futurs, et les moyens d’agir.