That warming is “unequivocally” caused by human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels, the report states. Under that treaty, nations have agreed to keep warming below two degrees Celsius by the end of the century and ideally to limit it below 1.5 degrees C.Īmong the findings of the overall report are that scientists “can show categorically that the earth has warmed by about 1.2 degrees since preindustrial times” said Piers Forster, a climate scientist at the University of Leeds in England and an IPCC author, at a webinar hosted by the World Resources Institute (WRI) last week. It provides a jumping-off point for negotiators looking to implement the landmark Paris climate agreement. This last piece of the Sixth Assessment Report summarizes the science explained in detail in the previous installments, which were released over the past few years. It is a survival guide for humanity.”Įvery six to seven years the IPCC rounds up thousands of peer-reviewed studies with the latest findings in climate science to make conclusions regarding what is known about the causes of climate change, what its impacts will be, and how to mitigate and adapt to it. The climate time-bomb is ticking,” said United Nations secretary-general António Guterres in a video message played at a press conference about the report’s release. “But today’s IPCC report is a how-to guide to defuse the climate time-bomb. “The rate of temperature rise in the last half century is the highest in 2,000 years. Concentrations of carbon dioxide are at their highest in at least two million years. The report calls for countries to ramp up their pledges to lower greenhouse gas emissions enough to reduce global emissions by 60 percent by 2035. The world has just a few years to drastically rein in carbon emissions enough to avoid the worst impacts of warming, according to the concluding piece of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was released on Monday. We are at a critical juncture in the fight to tackle the climate emergency.

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