Maria Figueroa contributes to the Sixth IPCC Assessment Report on Climate Change

MSC Associate Professor Maria Figueroa has contributed as lead author to the third part of the Sixth Assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The third part of the report was released on 4 April 2022.

Maria Figueroa explains that the Working Group III report on Mitigation of Climate Change, “looks at how nations and individuals can limit and prevent carbon emissions responsible for climate change”.  As Lead Author, she worked specifically on one chapter assessing “the data and literature that serves to understand the drivers of carbon emissions and helps to update the assessment of progress on global climate action in relation to long-term emissions goals”.

Read more about Maria Figueroa’s work on the report in an interview with her in this CBS News item, which also points out that the “key messages from the IPCC Working Group III sixth assessment report are that greenhouse gas emissions causing global warming, are at their highest levels in human history (54% higher than in 1990); and that we are not on track to limit warming to 1.5°C”.

Concurrently, Maria adds, there are options available now in every sector (industry, transport, buildings, agriculture, cities) that can at least halve emissions by 2030. In particular, the report sheds new light into assessing the demand for services and social aspects of mitigation highlighting how a transformation facilitated by behavioural, socio-cultural and institutional drivers and social practices through demand-side strategies have a great emissions reduction potential.

This newly published third part completes the Sixth Assessment Report which has been under way since 2017. It consists of contributions from each of the three Working Groups and a Synthesis Report.  Read more about the work here.

Find the Working Group III report on the IPCC website. For further information, please contact Maria Figueroa, mfi.msc@cbs.dk.