Update On Aug 10, 04:43 pm iist
The climate change report by UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that the world may have lost the opportunity to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels. The report further said that the world is running out of time even to slow climate change.
Global warming is dangerously close to spiralling out of control, a UN climate panel said in its report on Monday. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also said that the world is already certain to face further climate disruptions for decades, if not centuries, to come.
The deadly heatwaves, massive hurricanes and other extreme events of weather will become more severe, the report further said.
It noted that carbon dioxide has been and will continue to be the dominant cause of global warming under all greenhouse gas emissions scenarios.
Here are the key developments on the report which has painted a grim future:
UN 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.
Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav said on Twitter that the report is a clarion call for the developed countries to undertake immediate, deep emission cuts and decarbonisation of their economies.
India is the world’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases but its emissions per head are low owing to its large population of 1.3 billion.
According to IPCC report, unless immediate, rapid and large-scale action is taken to reduce emissions, the average global temperature is likely to exceed the 1.5-degree Celsius mark within 20 years. The threshold was set in Paris 2015.
The report said that emissions “unequivocally caused by human activities” have already pushed the average global temperature up 1.1 degrees Celsius from its pre-industrial average.
This level of warming is enough to unleash freak weather events. 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 US West, releasing record carbon dioxide emissions from Siberian forests, and driving Greeks to flee their homes by ferry
The report further said that the world is running out of time even to slow climate change. If emissions are slashed in the next decade, average temperatures could still be up 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2040 and possibly 1.6 degrees Celsius by 2060 before stabilising.
In some respite, the over 3000-page IPCC report also found that there is “low likelihood” of the so-called tipping points, like catastrophic ice sheet collapses and the abrupt slowdown of ocean currents, though they cannot be ruled out.
It has also suggested ways to bring back the warming to current levels in decades to come. This can be done through “negative emissions” – sucking more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere than is added – the IPCC report said.
Saleemul Huq, director of Dhaka-based environmental think tank ICCCAD, said the IPCC report was the final warning that bubble of empty promises is about to burst. “It’s suicidal, and economically irrational to keep procrastinating,” Huq said.