Many of the impacts of global warming are now simply “irreversible” according to the United Nations (UN)’s latest assessment.
But the authors of a new report say that there is still a brief window of time to avoid the very worst.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that humans and nature are being pushed beyond their abilities to adapt.
Over 40 per cent of the world’s population are “highly vulnerable” to climate, the somber study finds.
But there’s hope that if the rise in temperatures is kept below 1.5C, it would reduce projected losses.
Just four months on from COP26, where world leaders committed themselves to rapid action on climate change, this new UN study shows the scale of their task.
“Our report clearly indicates that places where people live and work may cease to exist, that ecosystems and species that we’ve all grown up with and that are central to our cultures and inform our languages may disappear,” said Prof. Debra Roberts, co-chair of the IPCC.
“So this is really a key moment. Our report points out very clearly this is the decade of action if we are going to turn things around.”
This report from the IPCC is the second of three reviews from the world’s foremost body of climate researchers.
Last August, the first installment highlighted the scale of the effect that humans were having on the climate system.
This new report looks at the causes, impacts and solutions to climate change. It gives the clearest indication to date of how a warmer world was affecting all the living things on Earth.
The report is a stark account of the fierce consequences that the world is already experiencing, like growing numbers of people dying from heat.
But the authors say that there is still a brief window of time to avoid the very worst.
“One of the things that I think is really, really clear in the report is that yes, things are bad, but actually the future depends on us, not the climate,” said Dr Helen Adams, a lead author on the report from King’s College, London.
The report shows that extreme weather events linked to climate change like floods and heatwaves are hitting humans and other species much harder than previous assessments indicated.