Against the backdrop of a series of the hottest days on the planet ever recorded, the Climate Overshoot Commission held its sixth–and presumably final–meeting online on the 5th and 6th of July. The Secretariat and Chair, Mr. Pascal Lamy, conducted the meeting from the offices of the Paris Peace Forum. The Commission was joined by its science advisors and members of its Youth Engagement Group.
The primary agenda of the meeting was to review and provide comments on the draft of the report. The Commissioners expressed satisfaction with the draft while contributing valuable further comments and insights.
Much of the discussions centered on striking the right balance on key issues. A key question was how to present the high and rising likelihood that global warming will exceed the 1.5 °C goal established by the Paris Agreement. The Commission also grappled with how to equitably differentiate the responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, eventually to net zero, between industrialized and non-industrialized countries. The rapid scaling up of adaptation was another topic of complex discussion. Meeting participants further deliberated on balancing the benefits of biological methods of carbon dioxide removal, which are currently more readily available and offer co-benefits, with those that store carbon in inorganic forms, which have a greater total capacity and more secure storage. Commissioners explored how the potential of solar radiation modification (SRM)–which remains a delicate issue–could be responsibly investigated while preventing possible misuse. Although the Commission only recently expanded its agenda to include finance–recognizing that grand proposals will remain merely theoretical without adequate funding– its members reach consensus on tone, substance, and recommendations. Finally, the Secretariat was requested to make the messages of the report clearer and "punchier."
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