UN’s IPCC Has Sounded Alarm Bells for Humanity With its Climate Change Report

IPCC Report from the UN has cautioned world regarding a devastating climate change

Wednesday, 11th August 2021

A recent scientific study conducted by the United Nations infers that human activity is playing a major role in changing the climate at a rate that is unprecedented. The authors of the report have termed it “code red for humanity.”

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has not minced its words when it said in its conclusion, “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, oceans, and land.”

The IPCC is a grouping of scientists whose findings are validated by the governments of the world. It has warned of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts, and flooding and a key temperature limit being broken inside the next decade. This entails, says the report, “means that the world will hit one-and-a-half degrees warming much earlier than expected, possibly the middle of 2034.”

Some key points in the report.

• In all scenarios, 1.5 C will be reached by 2040 unless the next few years are dedicated to a significant slash in emissions.
• In order to keep it to 1.5 C will require “immediate, rapid, and large-scale reductions” in emissions. Anything slack will mean a 2 C and more suffering for all life on Earth.
• Human influence is “very likely” (90%) the main propeller of the global retreat of glaciers since the 1990s and the decrease in Arctic sea ice.
• Since the 1950s, heat waves have become more frequent and more intense, while cold spells have become less frequent and less severe.
• Many countries may see an increase in “fire weather.”
• Drought is going up in more than 90% of regions.
• The global surface temperature was 1.09 C higher in the decade between 2011-2020 than between 1850-1900.
• After 1850, the world has recorded its hottest five years recently.
• As compared with the years between 1901-1971, the rate of sea-level rise has almost tripled.
• The drastic rise in sea levels can go up to around 2 meters by 2100 and around 5 meters by 2150, threatening millions of people in coastal areas.
• Extreme sea-level events that occurred once in hundred years are expected to occur at least once a year now.

Prof. Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy said, “We can no longer assume that citizens of more affluent and secure countries like Canada, Germany, Japan, and the U.S. will be able to ride out the worst excesses of a rapidly destabilizing climate, it’s clear we’re all in the same boat — facing a challenge that will affect every one of us within our lifetimes.”

The News Talkie Bureau

Source:

BBC