Humanity’s damaging impact on the climate is a “statement of fact”, say UN scientists in a landmark study. The report says that ongoing emissions of warming gases could also see a key temperature limit broken in just over a decade. The authors also show that a rise in sea levels approaching 2m by the end of this century “cannot be ruled out”. But there is new hope that deep cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases could stabilise rising temperatures. This sober assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) features in a 42-page document known as the Summary for Policymakers.
It leads a series of reports that will be published over coming months and is the first major review of the science of climate change since 2013. Its release comes less than three months before a key climate summit in Glasgow known as COP26. Almost every nation on Earth signed up to the goals of the Paris climate agreement in 2015. This pact aims to keep the rise in global temperatures well below 2C this century and to pursue efforts to keep it under 1.5C. This new report says that under all the emissions scenarios considered by the scientists, both targets will be broken this century unless huge cuts in carbon take place.
By Matt McGrath. BBC News. August 9, 2021.
