Fashion must cut greenhouse emissions in half, says UN climate group

The UN has warned that the world must halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 if it is to stay within the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C pathway. The solutions already exist, it’s just a question of acting on them.
Fashion must cut greenhouse emissions in half says UN climate group
Achim Schäfer/EyeEm via Getty Images

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All sectors must cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least half by 2030, a pressing target that the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says we already have the tools to achieve.

For fashion, that will mean more ambitious goals, faster implementation of solutions, and a wholesale reassessment of its value system.

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Changes will need to be made throughout the supply chain, from scaling regenerative farming and moving away from synthetic materials, to improving garment worker wages and encouraging people to consume less and reuse more. “The fashion industry needs to be more aggressive in its environmental targets,” IPCC contributor Patricia Romero-Lankao of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (part of the US Department of Energy) tells Vogue Business. “Production and provision have a much deeper impact and broader reach than consumption. The challenge is how to scale up existing initiatives.”

The newest target comes via the latest report from the IPCC, the group made up of 278 global scientists convened by the United Nations. It marks the culmination of three working groups assessing the science around climate change, whose findings will form the backbone of climate policy for years to come. The first such report in August urged fashion to move faster, shedding light on how industries’ existing goals were falling short. The second report, released last month, pointed governments and industries to adapt nature-based solutions in fighting climate change.

Now, with a clear target in place, the IPCC is focusing on how to get there. The latest IPCC report calls on industry and governments to triple the speed of the transition to renewable energy, protect forests and ecosystems, and make rapid progress towards reducing emissions.

“Half measures will not halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). “We have the technology and knowledge to get this done, through our rapid shift from fossil fuels to renewable and alternative fuels; through moving from deforestation to restoration; through backing nature in our landscapes, oceans and cities; through transforming our cities into green and clean spaces; and through behaviour changes to address the demand side of the equation.”

Where are we now?

While most countries and companies now have climate goals and emissions reduction targets, scientists say this is nowhere near enough. “The science is clear: to keep the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C of warming within reach, we need to cap global emissions by 45 per cent this decade. But current climate pledges would mean a 14 per cent increase in emissions,” UN secretary general António Guterres said in the press conference today.

As it stands, greenhouse gas emissions — which are causing global warming — are at their highest levels in human history. Emissions in 2019 were approximately 12 per cent higher than in 2010, and 54 per cent higher than in 1990.

“This report is a litany of broken climate promises,” Guterres continued. “It is a file of shame cataloguing the empty pledges that put us firmly on track towards an unlivable world.” At current rates of progress, the world is on a “fast-track to climate disaster”, which will see already quickening and worsening weather events — including heat waves, storms, water shortages, and the extinction of plants and animals — increase.

Global emissions disclosure company CDP, whose clients include LVMH, Estée Lauder and L'Oréal, says only one third of its partners have developed a low carbon transition plan, and less than 35 per cent of companies’ emission reduction targets are credible. “This lack of transparency and accountability is not good enough,” global director for climate change Amir Sokolowski said in a statement. Many brands say emissions and energy efficiency targets are insufficient without brands also considering degrowth.

“But, there is increased evidence of climate action,” adds working group three’s co-chair Jim Skea. “The average annual rate of growth in global emissions has slowed in the last decade, from 2.1 per cent per year in the early part of this century to 1.3 per cent per year between 2010 and 2019. Despite this progress, unless there are deep and immediate emissions reductions across all sectors, limiting warming to 1.5°C will be beyond reach.”

What happens next?

“We already have the tools and know-how to limit warning and secure a liveable future,” added Hoesung Lee, chair of the IPCC, noting that a synthesis report on all three working groups will be published later this year.

In energy, major transitions away from fossil fuels and towards low- or no-carbon energy systems and alternative fuels is recommended. Widespread electrification and improved energy efficiency are also needed, as well as some carbon capture technology to remove carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere.

For brands that use transport to move goods, the greatest potential to reduce emissions lies in using electric vehicles, powered by renewable energy. Where aviation and shipping are necessary, low-emission hydrogen and alternative biofuels are suggested. Companies can also tap into sustainable urban planning when developing new and existing sites, building in carbon storage such as green spaces, ponds and trees. They can also retrofit existing buildings to save energy and switch to renewables.

One of the key messages in the latest IPCC report was that so-called developed countries have contributed disproportionately to rising emissions and climate change, but developing countries are feeling the effects first and worst. Brands in the Global North — especially those with suppliers in the Global South — could help redress this balance by supporting suppliers in their own energy transition, incentivising sustainable material production, and advocating for garment workers to have better pay and conditions. “If we don’t do that, we will continue to perpetrate the inequities that got us to this point,” says Romero-Lankao.

Brands using natural materials should consider their land use, the report continues. Companies should prioritise protecting and restoring natural ecosystems that remove carbon from the atmosphere, including forests, peatlands, coastal wetlands, savannas and grasslands. Removing and storing carbon dioxide in this way is necessary but cannot compensate for delayed emissions reductions elsewhere. This ties into recent efforts from the fashion industry to restore biodiversity, cut deforestation from its supply chains, and transform farmland to regenerative agriculture methods. “Land provides us with so much: food, nature and our livelihoods,” said IPCC working group three vice chair Diana Ürge-Vorsatz. “These competing demands have to be carefully managed.”

Investment is a key challenge: financial flows are currently 3 to 6 times lower than needed to achieve 2030 targets, which underscores a funding gap impeding fashion’s climate goals. “The money needed is in the trillions, not billions,” explained Skea. “Governments need loan guarantees and export credit to make sure projects become investable and to incentivise private sector investments.”

“Climate change is the result of more than a century of unsustainable energy and land use, and patterns of unsustainable production and consumption,” said Skea. “We know what to do, we know how to do it, and now it’s up to us to take action. The longer we put off action, the less feasible this becomes.”

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