Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

This blog is part of a series on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent 6th Assessment Report, with this post covering the output of Working Group III and the proposed solutions and mitigations for the climate crisis. This article also features a chat with IPCC Lead Author Dr Jo House and contributor Viola Heinrich, researchers at the University of Bristol and Cabot Institute for the Environment.  Of the three Working Groups, the third makes for the most positive reading. As the title suggests, this one is all about the mitigation of climate change and preventing the disastrous climate futures explained by Working Groups I and II. Whilst remaining focussed on the impending nature of the climate crisis, this report spells out that we have the solutions. As discussed in the previous posts, massive behavioural changes are needed at government and societal levels. When I spoke to academics, they were positive that we were well past the point of whether climate change is...

  This blog is part of a series from the Cabot Institute for the Environment on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent sixth Assessment report, with this post covering the output of Working Group 2 and the impacts of climate change on society and ecosystems. This article also features a chat with Prof Daniela Schmidt , a Professor at the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol, and a Lead Author on the IPCC’s AR6 report. For links to the rest of the series, see the bottom of the post. Welcome to the next post in this series on the IPCC sixth Assessment Report (AR6). Now that we’ve covered the background science to climate change, the next phase looks at the impacts on society, ecosystems, and the intricate fabric of everything in between – combining the science and aiding the transition of translating to policies that governments can implement to better the planet and mitigate the impacts. This report is, in my opinion, the most alarming of the bunch ...

This blog is part of a series from the Cabot Institute for the Environment on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent AR6 report (IPCC, AR6), with this post covering the output of Working Group 1 and the physical scientific basis of climate change. This article also features a chat with Professor Dan Lunt , a Climate Scientist at the University of Bristol who focusses on paleoclimates and climate modelling, and a Lead Author on the IPCC’s AR6 report. For links to the rest of the series, see the bottom of the post. The IPCC begins their 6th Assessment Report by explaining the physical science basis and publishing the finding of Working Group 1 (WG1) in August 2021. This means that, rather than considering the impact on humans, ecosystems and societies covered by later working groups, this report only looks at the effects on the planet from a physical standpoint. Consider this part of the report to be describing the problem, where later reports describe the impacts and th...

  This blog is the first part of a series from the Cabot Institute for the Environment on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent Sixth Assessment Report (IPCC AR6). This post is an introduction to the blog series, explaining what we’re aiming to do here and with a glossary of some climate change terms that come up in the later posts. Look out for links to the rest of the series this week. What is the IPCC? The IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Formed in 1988 by scientists concerned about the state of the global climate, they’ve been publishing assessment reports on the climate to advise policymakers and governments to act. This year they published their 6th assessment report (AR6), which has been described as their ‘starkest warning’ about the dangers of climate change. The report was built up of 3 Working Groups and over 2800 experts representing 105 countries covering different aspects, from the base science to the sociological impacts of a cl...

When describing the commercial port land of Felixstowe (fig. I) as a ‘ nerve ganglion of capitalism ’ in 2006, a proto-nostalgic horizon ‘blighted by cargo ships’, Mark Fisher was describing a vision of the natural’s collision course with the monetary in words that ooze forth from the ascetic expanse he walked us through, right up to the journey’s reposeful end point, the burial ground at Sutton Hoo (fig. II). Here, in this space, palpable is the sense that the increasingly unseen in today’s world is seen so lucidly that upon listening closer, Beowulf ’s verses may come rushing forth upon the Deben mists to play amongst the ancient mounds and time-worn grasses.  Figures I (top) & II (bottom): Felixstowe container port (top) the largest of its kind in the United Kingdom, a point of arrival and nerve ganglion of capitalism responsible for the distribution of material commodities across the land along established networks of commerce. By contrast, the ‘sunlit planetary quality ...

Migration is both gendered and aged. It is also deeply tied to the emergence of new extractive landscapes around the world, marked by extractive frontiers pushing into already stressed and fragile environments.  The story of the village of Kante in Tajikistan, of its male migrants and its coal miners – men, women and children – illustrates the ways in which multiple forms of precarious labour appear alongside these new landscapes.   The village of Kante, Tajikistan, 2014 (Negar E. Behzadi)  In Tajikistan, a landlocked country in post-Soviet Muslim Central Asia, men started migrating seasonally for work following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. In Kante, a village of 1,500 inhabitants on the slopes of the Fann Mountains, 2,000m above sea level, the men gradually began leaving a derelict landscape and a run-down collective tobacco farm. Like most Tajik male seasonal migrants, they left for Russia to find new livelihoods and to escape a country torn by civil war. ...