Today, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change delivered its latest comprehensive report on the state of global climate science—just the sixth in the body’s more than 30-year history. The report’s 200-plus authors distilled 14,000 individual studies to produce today’s release. Even the IPCC’s so-called “summary for policymakers,” a distillation of the report’s key findings approved by the delegations of 195 nations, clocks in at 42 pages.
Here are five key takeaways from the report:
1. The last decade was hotter than any period in 125,000 years.
2. Scientists can now link specific weather events to human-made climate change.
3. Scientists have narrowed the estimated range for how temperatures respond to greenhouse-gas emissions.
4. The Earth rewards good behavior.
5. The IPCC’s volunteer scientists build consensus with all UN governments before releasing this report.
By Eric Roston and Akshat Rathi. By Bloomberg News. August 9, 2021.
