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U.N. climate change report sounds 'code red for humanity'

Published 08/09/2021, 04:08 AM
Updated 08/09/2021, 04:48 PM
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A man looks on outside a house in an area affected by floods caused by heavy rainfall in Bad Muenstereifel, Germany, July 19, 2021. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay/

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A man looks on outside a house in an area affected by floods caused by heavy rainfall in Bad Muenstereifel, Germany, July 19, 2021. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay/

By Nina Chestney and Andrea Januta

(Reuters) -Global warming is dangerously close to spiralling out of control, a U.N. climate panel said in a landmark report Monday, warning the world is already certain to face further climate disruptions for decades, if not centuries, to come.

Humans are "unequivocally" to blame, the report from the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1 said. Rapid action to cut greenhouse gas emissions could limit some impacts, but others are now locked in.

The deadly heat waves, gargantuan hurricanes and other weather extremes that are already happening will only become more severe.

Monday alone saw 500,000 acres of forest burning in California, while in Venice tourists waded through ankle-deep water in St. Mark's Square.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres described the report as a "code red for humanity".

"The alarm bells are deafening," he said in a statement. "This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet."

In an interview with Reuters https://reut.rs/2U4reeV, activist Greta Thunberg called on the public and media to put "massive" pressure on governments to act.

In three months, the U.N. COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, will try to wring much more ambitious climate action out of the nations of the world, and the money to go with it.

Drawing on more than 14,000 scientific studies, the IPCC report gives the most comprehensive and detailed picture yet of how climate change is altering the natural world - and what could still be ahead.

Unless immediate, rapid and large-scale action is taken to reduce emissions, the report says, the average global temperature is likely to reach or cross the 1.5-degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming threshold within 20 years.

The pledges to cut emissions https://reut.rs/3ywxDyE made so far are nowhere near enough to start reducing level of greenhouse gases - mostly carbon dioxide (CO2) from burning fossil fuels - accumulated in the atmosphere.

'WAKE-UP CALL'

Governments and campaigners reacted https://www.reuters.com/article/climate-change-ipcc-reactions-short-idAFL8N2PG1ZW to the findings https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-ipcc-takeaways-idUSKBN2FA0J8 with alarm.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he hoped the report would be "a wake-up call for the world to take action now, before we meet in Glasgow".

U.S. President Joe Biden tweeted Monday: "We can’t wait to tackle the climate crisis. The signs are unmistakable. The science is undeniable. And the cost of inaction keeps mounting."

The report says emissions "unequivocally caused by human activities" have already pushed the average global temperature up 1.1C from its pre-industrial average - and would have raised it 0.5C further without the tempering effect of pollution in the atmosphere.

That means that, even as societies move away from fossil fuels, temperatures will be pushed up again by the loss of the airborne pollutants that come with them and currently reflect away some of the sun's heat.

A rise of 1.5C is generally seen as the most that humanity could cope with without suffering widespread economic and social upheaval.

The 1.1C warming already recorded has been enough to unleash disastrous weather https://tmsnrt.rs/3wcycMk. This year, heat waves killed hundreds in the Pacific Northwest and smashed records around the world. Wildfires fuelled by heat and drought are sweeping away entire towns in the U.S. West, releasing record carbon dioxide emissions from Siberian forests, and driving Greeks to flee their homes by ferry.

Further warming could mean that in some places, people could die just from going outside.

"The more we push the climate system ... the greater the odds we cross thresholds that we can only poorly project," said IPCC co-author Bob Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University.

IRREVERSIBLE

Some changes are already "locked in". Greenland’s sheet of land-ice https://tmsnrt.rs/2Qvivkg is "virtually certain" to continue melting, and raising the sea level, which will continue to rise for centuries to come as the oceans warm and expand.

“We are now committed to some aspects of climate change, some of which are irreversible for hundreds to thousands of years,” said IPCC co-author Tamsin Edwards, a climate scientist at King’s College London. “But the more we limit warming, the more we can avoid or slow down those changes.”

But even to slow climate change, the report says, the world is running out of time.

If emissions are slashed in the next decade, average temperatures could still be up 1.5C by 2040 and possibly 1.6C by 2060 before stabilising.

And if, instead the world continues on its the current trajectory, the rise could be 2.0C by 2060 and 2.7C by the century’s end.

The Earth has not been that warm since the Pliocene Epoch roughly 3 million years ago - when humanity's first ancestors were appearing, and the oceans were 25 metres (82 feet) higher than they are today.

© Reuters. Locals evacuate the area with their animals as a wildfire rages in the suburb of Thrakomakedones, north of Athens, Greece, August 7, 2021. REUTERS/Giorgos Moutafis

It could get even worse, if warming triggers feedback loops that release even more climate-warming carbon emissions -- such as the melting of Arctic permafrost or the dieback of global forests.

Under these high-emissions scenarios, Earth could broil at temperatures 4.4C above the preindustrial average by the last two decades of this century.

Latest comments

A document made on specious arguments and opinion.The UN..Seriously?
Nuke the sun
My energy bill is 90% less these days. Why? I generate my own electricity, witch I use for Koking,  warming and driving. I pay 100 euro a month for the whole thing. Insurance. Charging my car elsewhere at times. Plus is save 100 euro a month for maintenance of the installation 😀😀😀. If you love your money? Try saving the planet 😎😎😎
We should sue the oil company.
Oh brother!
The cause of climate change is likely to be a Sun/Earth cycle rather than the result of human activity. The cessation of travel, etc, during Covid made no difference, and it's certain that the world will never be as quiet again. So if we're causing it, we are doomed! :)
I remember as a kid in grade school back in the 60's they spoke about rising greenhouse gases that would cause a problem. Well it's finally here! I'll only have to put up with a decade or two of it if I'm lucky. Some of you will have an entire lifetime of dealing with it. Have fun! lol!!
LOL, the world is going to end in ten years
Sounds like the UN might be getting a clue.
clue to what?
When have we ever not had disruptions in the climate? Is Al Gore on that pannel? I bet the personal jet setting John Kerry ptobably is.
Yes.  Gretta Tumberg wants you to pay tax into communist politicians pocket.  This is what this is all about. I see a lot of mumbling but I don't see any plans but raising taxes on how to fix this.
It's Ms. THUNBERG to you , vlad.
14,000 published controlled studies and the tards say "ya but no real evidence" lmao
your figure is false and actually inclusive of studies showing little to no man made impact, its literally from a keyword search. regardless, 98 percent of studies agree with the people funding them. sadly, "omfg i love science!" media trusting midwits such as yourself dont even try to think critically these days and never consider who benefits from the narratives being pushed or utilize what thier own god given intuition and common sense tells them
Another lame government excuse to spend even more money
I feel sorry for you.
Obama better sell his ocean front property then.
Maybe the fat golfer needs to then.
Just another tought, does somebody calculate the effects of the Infrastructure Bill on the models? I think they not. As usual, bla bla bla but in reality NOTHING. We're doomed just look at your mirror.
Uh oh someone wrote “U.N.” and “climate change” this will be mega big trigger words for any conservative conspiracist snowflakes.
Well ofcourse if you study the history of the UN they lie often
hey look, a tv brainwashed midwit! anyone who still uses the term conspiracist derisively in the year 2021is basically a rral life walking dead zombie at this point
No organization ever lied like the fat golfer but you believed him. Too funny!!
Unfortunately there are choices that humans cannot make. The progress and economic models work only with inflation, meaning to keep the financial machinery up going always we will need more materials, people, energy. We could kick the can but future is irreversible. People will suffer, more badly the poor as always, because even with all the advances we still couldn't create system more balanced. Is a Train crashed in slow-motion.
The Sahara was all grassland and fertile soil just 4000 years ago. There were no industrial pollutants or manmade gasses going into the atmosphere back then, but it changed to desert all the same over a very short period... because the climate is constantly changing, and humans are not unequivically to blame, it's natural. The poles are also shifting, which is makes for more dramatic change. They just want something else to control and tax.
Nobody said climate change required manmade gasses to happen. It’s just supposed to take much much longer. Cute strawman though, 2 stars.
how long is it supposed to take smart guy? I lay out facts with an example, and you say "it's supposed to take much much longer". What is supposed to take much much longer exactly, and what facts do you base that assertion on?
the period over which the sahara came to be was centuries, not thousands of years, which still baffles scientists... because it should have taken "much much longer".
Lets live like middle ages, those were the good days 😆🤪
thanks to shows like game of thrones, the middle age is *****again.
this is just sad
#define this
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