The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body for assessing science related to climate change, earlier this week released the report of its Working Group I, which is the first installment of its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), to be completed in 2022.

[Nomathemba Tana- “You will indeed be clever to come through fire with water”]

The report provides new estimates of the chances of crossing the global warming level of 1.5°C in the next decades, and finds that unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5°C or even 2°C will be beyond reach.

The report shows that emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are responsible for approximately 1.1°C of warming since 1850-1900, and finds that averaged over the next 20 years, global temperature is expected to reach or exceed 1.5°C of warming. This assessment is based on improved observational datasets to assess historical warming, as well progress in scientific understanding of the response of the climate system to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions…

The report projects that in the coming decades climate changes will increase in all regions. For 1.5°C of global warming, there will be increasing heat waves, longer warm seasons and shorter cold seasons. At 2°C of global warming, heat extremes would more often reach critical tolerance thresholds for agriculture and health, the report shows.

Liam Kofi Bright, assistant professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics, went through the report and noted on Twitter that several contemporary philosophers were cited in it, and others have added some names to his list*:

• Gregor Betz (Karlsruhe)
• Heather Douglas (Michigan State)
• Helen Longino (Stanford)
• Wendy Parker (Virginia Tech)
• Eric Winsberg (South Florida)
• Kevin C. Elliott (Michigan State)
• Kristen Intemann (Montana State)
• Elisabeth A. Lloyd (Indiana)

Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper were also cited in the report.

Dr. Bright noted that it seemed that the philosophers were cited in regard to two sorts of topics: the role of non-epistemic value judgments in science and how to learn from climate models.

You can access the full report and summaries of it here.

* The original version of this post only contained the names initially mentioned by Dr. Bright.