World To Cross 1.5 Degree Global Warming Limit, UN Says In Its 'Survival Guide' Report

In one more alarming statement about climate change, the UN said on Monday said that the world will cross the key 1.5-degree Celsius global warming limit in about a decade. The international organisation warned that the devastating impacts of climate change are hitting faster than expected.

AFP

UN's climate advisory panel urged dramatic reductions in planet-heating emissions in the final instalment of a major series of reports, delivered in a crucial decade in human history.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's key message is that while humanity has driven the planet to the precipice of climate catastrophe, there is still time to steer global temperatures to within relatively safe limits.

That will require enormous global effort.

"Rapid and far-reaching transitions across all sectors and systems are necessary to achieve deep and sustained emissions reductions and secure a liveable and sustainable future for all," said the report's "summary for policymakers".

Distilling the weight of scientific knowledge on climate change, the IPCC's work will form the basis of intense political and economic negotiations in the coming years, starting with the UN COP28 climate negotiations in Dubai later this year.

Report represents a 'message of hope'

The 36-page summary -- a synthesis of six major reports since 2018 -- is a brutal reminder that while humanity has the tools to prevent climate catastrophe, it is still not putting them to use.

But it represents a "message of hope", the head of the IPCC told AFP.

"We have know-how, technology, tools, financial resources -- everything needed to overcome the climate problems we have known about for so long," Hoesung Lee said in a video interview.

"What's lacking at this point is a strong political will to resolve these issues once and for all."

People in power live in denial: Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg

The IPCC said the world is currently set to reach 1.5C above pre-industrial levels -- the more ambitious and safer target of the Paris Agreement -- in the early 2030s, which will ratchet up the severity of impacts in the near future.

"The fact that the people in power still somehow live in denial, and actively move in the wrong direction, will eventually be seen for and understood as the unprecedented betrayal it is," climate activist Greta Thunberg told AFP.

At just under 1.2C of warming so far, the world today has already seen a crescendo of deadly and destructive extreme weather. The most vulnerable populations have already been hit hard.

"The warmest years we have experienced to date will be among the coolest within a generation," Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London and lead author of the report, told AFP.

'Humanity is on thin ice'

In response to the report, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said wealthy countries aiming for carbon neutrality in 2050 or beyond should speed up their goal to as close as possible to 2040 in order to "defuse the climate time bomb."

Antonio Guterres

"Humanity is on thin ice -- and that ice is melting fast," he said in a video message, likening the IPCC report to "a survival guide for humanity".

The report comes as the world has scrambled to shore up energy security following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with countries in Europe and Asia turning to heavily polluting coal, even as renewables rise.

(With inputs from AFP)

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