Launch of high-level global Commission to craft strategy to reduce risks from higher global warming｜Press release

Press Release, 17 May 2022

Launch of high-level global Commission to craft strategy to reduce risks from higher global warming

Paris, 17 May, 2022

Sixteen current and former global leaders launched a new high-level Commission which will explore how to reduce the rising risks to people and nature if global warming continues its present trajectory, threatening to exceed goals.

The primary approach to combatting climate change should remain the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. But as temperatures continue to rise and overshooting the Paris Agreement’s global warming goals becomes more likely, additional approaches to reduce climate risks have been proposed. These include expanded and accelerated adaptation, the large-scale removal of excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and possibly cooling the planet by reflecting incoming sunlight. Research indicates that, if these options supplemented emissions cuts and were governed well, they could help ward off harms to people and the planet.

The Climate Overshoot Commission will present the first integrated strategy that considers these additional options and how they could be governed, ahead of the UN Climate Change Summit in 2023. The Commission will focus on ways of effectively minimizing climate risks that are evidence-based, resilient, just, and equitable.