The United Nation’s Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, of which India is one of the 195 members, has released its sixth assessment report today. Scientists are observing changes in the Earth’s climate in every region and across the whole climate system. Many changes already started as a rise in the sea level, these changes are irreversible over hundreds to thousands of years.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the IPCC’s assessment – the most detailed review of climate science ever conducted – “code red for humanity”.
A major UN Scientific report has said “Human activity is changing the climate in unprecedented and sometimes invisible ways”.
The landmark study warns of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts, and flooding, and a key temperature limit being broken in just over a decade.
Some Points of the IPCC Climate Change Report
• The report, which is the first major review of its kind since 2013, was released on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ahead of the COP26 summit in November.
• UN scientists found that temperatures on Earth will rise by about 1.5C in around two decades, adding that a near-2m rise in sea levels by the end of this century “cannot be ruled out”.
• It also found that since 1970, global surface temperatures have risen faster than in any other 50-year period over the past 2,000 years.
● Sea levels are rising faster. The average rate between 1901-1971 was 1.3 mm/year, this more than doubled to 3.7 mm/year between 2006-2018.
● Cities are hotspots of global warming because these trap heat and there’s a lack of cooling areas like water and vegetation.
● Global warming can be limited by the end of this century but it will take drastic and immediate cuts – from now – in burning fossil fuels and other activities emitting greenhouse gases.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he hopes the report would be a “wake-up call for the world to take action now.”
The IPCC very strongly emphasized and said in its document that “it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, oceans, and land”.
According to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the UN Climate report that predicts quicker global warming than anticipated just three years ago “must sound a death knell” for coal, oil, and gas and is “code red” for humanity.
“Today’s IPCC Working Group 1 Report is a ‘code red’ for humanity,”
“This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels before they destroy our planet.” he further added.
Greta Thunberg Swedish climate activist said that the long-awaited report contained “no real surprises”.
“It confirms what we already know from thousands of previous studies and reports – we are in an emergency,” Thunberg said.
“It’s a solid summary of the current best available science.
“It doesn’t tell us what to do,” she noted of the report, which synthesizes reams of climate studies conducted in recent years.
“It is up to us to be brave and take decisions based on the scientific evidence provided in these reports. We can still avoid the worst consequences, but not if we continue like today, and not without treating the crisis as a crisis.”
According to Prof Ed Hawkins, from the University of Reading, UK, and one of the report’s authors, the scientists cannot be any clearer on this point.
“It is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet,” he said.
