COPENHAGEN, 19 October 2018 – In light of a recent report issued by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Nilza de Sena, Chair of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s economic and environmental committee, warned of the consequences of inaction and urged a greater commitment from all OSCE countries in combating global warming.

Nilza de Sena“The report that came out last week from the IPCC made clear that terms agreed in the Paris Agreement of 2015 are not sufficient to limit climate change,” de Sena noted. “At the Paris Agreement, it was already known that the proposed actions would not prevent global averages from rising by more than 3° C by the end of the century and that more efforts were needed.”

She emphasized the scientific consensus that a temperature rise of 1.5º C is the maximum acceptable limit in a planet whose global average temperature has already climbed 1º C since the middle of the 19th century.

“Since António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, said that ‘climate change is moving faster than we are,’ that clock began to tick more loudly,” said de Sena, a member of parliament from Portugal. “The consequences seem to be close and potentially disastrous.”

She highlighted the scientific conclusions drawn in the IPCC report, which stress the likelihood of rising sea levels that could threaten millions of people; as well as threats to water security, severe heat waves, changes in fauna and flora and the destruction of coral reefs. “In fact, we cannot anticipate all the consequences,” de Sena stressed.

She added: “We can expect that even half a degree can affect hundreds of millions of people. The obvious thing to avoid this dramatic scenario is to accelerate decarbonization and intensify the discussion on the expansion of renewable and sustainable energy and maximizing energy efficiency. Carbon pricing helps to ensure that the true costs of fossil fuel use are reflected in the marketplace, and that carbon pricing is one of the most efficient tools that governments can use to incentivize the transition to a low-carbon economy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean economic growth. States must be committed with this.”

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s General Committee on Economic Affairs, Science, Technology and Environment has regularly debated climate change in recent years and the Berlin Declaration adopted at the OSCE PA’s Annual Session last July emphasized the need to mitigate and adapt to climate change throughout the OSCE area.