A local reacts to watching a wildfire advancing in Orjais, Covilha council in central Portugal, on August 16, 2022.
Patricia De Melo Moreira | Afp | Getty Images
A landmark U.N. report published Monday urged governments across the globe to embark on an urgent course correction to tackle the climate emergency, warning current plans were insufficient to prevent the worst of what the crisis has in store.
The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the unprecedented challenge of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels had become even greater in recent years due to the relentless increase in global greenhouse gas emissions.
This has resulted in more frequent and more intense extreme weather events that have caused increasingly dangerous impacts on nature and people in every region of the world, the report said.
Deep, rapid and sustained greenhouse gas emission reductions across all sectors will be necessary if warming is to be limited by 1.5 degrees Celsius, the report says, noting that global emissions should already be decreasing and will need to be slashed almost in half by 2030.
The 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature threshold is widely recognized as crucial because so-called tipping points become more likely beyond this level. Tipping points are thresholds at which small changes can lead to dramatic shifts in Earth’s entire life support system.
“Mainstreaming effective and equitable climate action will not only reduce losses and damages for nature and people, it will also provide wider benefits,” IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee said in a statement.
“This Synthesis Report underscores the urgency of taking more ambitious action and shows that, if we act now, we can still secure a liveable sustainable future for all.”
In short, our world needs climate action on all fronts — everything, everywhere, all at once
António Guterres
U.N. Secretary-General
The IPCC’s Synthesis Report, approved during a week-long session in Interlaken, Switzerland,…
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