UN Report on Climate Change

The United Nations climate science panel, in a major report, warned that climate change is upon us and humanity is not prepared for it. The report noted that over half of the world’s population was already exposed to increasingly hazardous climate impacts and called for massive action.

Overview:

  • The report stated that by 2040, climate change is expected to make the world hungrier, sicker, far more hazardous, and poorer with an increase in hazards.
  • According to the report, there is only a rapidly closing and narrow window of opportunity to secure a sustainable and liveable future for all.
  • According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), if human-caused global warming is not limited, the Earth that is now regularly hit by deadly fires, heat, drought, and floods will degrade in 127 ways, some of which will be irreversible.
  • Governments have been asked to cut carbon emissions.
  • By 2050, with the rising of seas, billion people will face the risk of coastal flooding.
  • People, animals, plants, economies, and ecosystems are all at risk, according to the report, with billions of people at risk and trillions of dollars in possible damages.
  • Climate change is killing people with many people dying from diseases, heat waves, air pollution, extreme weather, and starvation.
  • Even if global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius, human life, livelihoods, and safety across North America will be facing risk due to rising sea levels, severe hurricanes, and storms, especially in the coastal areas of the region.
  • Some places will turn so hot that people won’t be able to work outside and it will be a big problem in the agricultural sector.
  • Parts of South and Central America, Africa, and South Asia are the hot spots for the worst harm to ecosystems and people.
  • The amount of land burned by wildfires globally will grow by 35 percent if the planet warms just nine-tenths of a degree Celsius from what it is now.

What did this report focus upon?

The focus of this report was on how societies and nature are being harmed, as well as what they might do to adapt.

What does this report highlight?

The report highlights that places are becoming uninhabitable, people are being displaced from their homes, the disappearance of coral, the number of species dwindling, shrinking and rising of ice, and increasingly acidic and oxygen-depleted oceans.

What does this report say about today’s children?

The children of today who might still be living in the year 2100 will face four times more climate extremes than what they are doing currently. According to the IPCC, if temperatures rise roughly 2 degrees Celsius from what it is now, they will experience five times as many storms, floods, heatwaves, and droughts.

What does the report say about mitigating the effect of climate change?

The report states that action is required to reduce rising temperatures and limit the effects of climate change on mental and physical health and well-being. Some of the expected consequences would be unavoidable, but early and significant action could help avoid the worst of them.

About Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

IPCC is a United Nations intergovernmental group that works on advancing knowledge on climate change. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) established it in 1988, and the UN General Assembly later endorsed it. It has 195-member nations and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.


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