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UN climate change report: António Guterres issues blunt warning

UN climate change report: António Guterres issues blunt warning


The report published today by the world’s leading climate science body, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, summarizes the panel’s output over the past five years, amounting to some 10,000 pages of dense scientific prose. This synthesis is succinct at 37 pages, and its message is blunt: Burning fossil fuels is threatening human well-being and the stability of much of life on Earth, and our chance to avoid the most severe impacts is fast moving out of reach

“This report is a clarion call to massively fast-track climate efforts by every country and every sector and on every timeframe,” said UN Secretary General António Guterres in a statement on the report’s release. “In short, our world needs climate action on all fronts — everything, everywhere, all at once.” 

The report underscores a handful of points about climate change and its impacts: 

  • Greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activity have unequivocally caused global warming, and emissions have continued to rise, with some countries and groups contributing far more than others.
  • The world must cut greenhouse gas emissions to 60% below 2019 levels by 2035.
  • “Widespread and rapid” changes to planetary systems have already taken place, their impacts disproportionately affecting the world’s at-risk populations. More than 3 billion people are highly vulnerable to climate change.
  • Climate adaptation has advanced, but not enough. Current levels of funding are insufficient. Increased warming will make adaptation harder.
  • Although policies to mitigate climate change have expanded, it’s likely that the world will exceed 1.5C of warming “in the near term.” Limiting warming to 1.5C or 2C will require deep emissions cuts across the economy this decade. If the world overshoots 1.5C, that level could be brought down again by ending emissions and deploying carbon removal, but carbon removal brings additional concerns. Emissions must peak before 2025 for a 50% chance to hit 1.5C with little or no overshoot.
  • Climate-related risks are rising with every increment of warming. “Deep, rapid and sustained” emissions cuts can avoid some future changes, but not others. 

The IPCC’s sixth cycle of publication began in 2018. Global emissions have not fallen but continued to rise since then, necessitating more drastic and immediate steps to curtail them. Reaching net zero emissions soon is critical. 

The addition of a 60% greenhouse gas…

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