Window to reverse climate change “atlas of human suffering” almost closed, U.N. warns

Paris – After decades of talking hard about global warming while greenhouse gases emissions increasedthe world and its leaders on Monday faced a horrific “atlas of human suffering” and the promise of much worse to come.

Nearly half of the planet’s population is highly vulnerable to a devastator set of climate impactsaccording to a historic UN report that says the time is almost over to ensure a “livable future” for all.

“The accumulated scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health,” the report concluded.

Another delay in reducing carbon pollution and preparing for impacts that are already underway “will miss a brief opportunity and will close quickly to ensure a livable and sustainable future for all,” the report says.

For UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, this is a “condemnatory accusation” of the failed leadership, which he described as “criminal”.

“The biggest polluters in the world are to blame for the fire in our only house,” he said.

Extinction of species, collapse of ecosystems, diseases transmitted by insects, deadly heat waves and mega-stormswater scarcity, reduced crop yields, everything is measurably worse due to rising temperatures, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said.

The past year has seen an unprecedented flood of floods, heat waves and wildfires across four continents.

All of these impacts will accelerate in the coming decades, even if the fossil fuel pollution that drives climate change is achieved quickly, the 195-nation IPCC warned.

As nations struggle to finally bend the curve of carbon dioxide emissions downward, they must also prepare for a climate attack that in some cases can no longer be avoided, the report made clear.

Even The Russian invasion of Ukraine can not be distracted from the truths set out in the 3,600-page report and its very important summary for policymakers, said those involved in the two-week virtual talks.

“Ignoring this report, or ignoring climate change, is simply not an option,” IPCC co-chair Han-Otto Portner, a scientist, told AFP.

“Climate change is affecting us, persecuting us,” he added. “It’s an existential threat.”

Svitlana Krakovska, who led the Ukrainian delegation, spoke passionately at the end of the conference on the link between conflict and global warming.

“Man-made and war-induced climate change in Ukraine have the same roots, fossil fuels, and our dependence on them,” he said.

Among the main findings of the report were the intertwined fates of human and natural systems.

He stressed that climate change cannot be domesticated unless degraded forests and oceans that store carbon are recovered and protected, and the ecosystems on which we and other life forms depend to obtain water, air and clean soils will not survive intact. in a world of uncontrolled warming.

The report made it clear that a viable future is based on the thread of a knife.

Some serious impacts are already irreversible, such as the likely disappearance of almost all shallow-water corals.

Other points of no return are beyond the aspirational goal of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the report warns.

The 2015 treaty calls on nations to keep rising temperatures “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), but recent science has left no doubt that a 1.5-degree threshold Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) is much safer.

Even in optimistic scenarios of rapid reduction of carbon pollution, projections of climate impacts are worrisome.

Up to 14 percent of terrestrial species face a “very high” risk of extinction with only 1.5 degrees Celsius warming, the IPCC said, stepping up conservation calls from 30 to 50 % of the world’s land and ocean territory. The threat grows with each fraction of a degree.

By 2050, there will be more than a billion people in coastal areas highly vulnerable to storm surges amplified by rising seas. As usual, the poorest will often be the most affected.

By 2100, the value of global assets on future one-year coastal floodplains in 100 years will be about $ 10 trillion in a scenario of moderate greenhouse gas emissions, according to the report.

The IPCC assessment, the sixth since 1990, highlights the need to address the inevitable climate impacts on almost every page.

Overall, the IPCC warns, global warming is outpacing our preparations for a climate world: “With the current pace of adaptation planning and implementation, the adaptation gap will continue to grow.”

The report also focuses on the irreversible and potentially catastrophic changes in the climate system known as turning points, triggered at different global warming thresholds.

These include melting ice sheets on top of Greenland and West Antarctica with enough frozen water to lift the oceans 43 feet; the transformation of the Amazon basin from tropical forest to savannah; and the disruption of global ocean currents that distribute heat around the world.