The latest assessment of climate science is a “code red for humanity,” the head of the United Nations said Monday, as a body of scientists convened by the organization—the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—warned of the “unequivocal” and in some cases irreversible effects of human influence on the planet. The climate is warming at a pace even faster than previously thought and, without stark emissions cuts, could surpass a crucial temperature threshold “up to a decade sooner than previously thought,” Axios notes. “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 IPCC said in a press release Monday. As report co-author Linda Mearns described it: “Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.”
The 3,949-page report concluded that many of the changes scientists are seeing in the Earth’s climate “are unprecedented over many centuries to many thousands of years” and noted that the responsibility of human activity for “observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitations, droughts, and tropical cyclones” has intensified since the panel’s last report eight years ago. The latest assessment “for the first time speaks with certainty” about man-made climate change, Bloomberg reports, the escalating consequences of which have been palpable across the planet.
Scientists laid out five possible climate futures, varying based on how much carbon emissions are reduced in the remaining window of time. “Our opportunity to avoid even more catastrophic impacts has an expiration date,” Helen Mountford, vice president of climate and economics for the World Resources Institute, said in a statement regarding the new IPCC report, which “implies that this decade is truly our last chance to take the actions necessary to limit temperature rise.”
The response from political corners was largely predictable. John Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, said that the assessment “underscores the overwhelming urgency of this moment” and called on “all major economies” to “commit to aggressive climate action during this critical decade.” Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, said in a statement that he hopes the “sobering” report will be “a wake-up call for the world to take action now, before we meet in Glasgow in November for the critical COP26 summit.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also highlighted the upcoming international climate negotiations and called the assessment “a stark reminder that we must let science drive us to action.”
Climate activist Greta Thunberg poured cold water on much of the posturing, criticism that particularly applies to Johnson. In a video message, Thunberg noted that the report exposes the gap between what politicians say and what they actually do to reduce admission. “We are not holding people in power accountable,” she said. “I hope that this can be a wake-up call.”
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August 10, 2021 at 01:11AM
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Alarming New UN Climate Report Says Humanity Has Really Screwed Itself - Vanity Fair
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