Charles Dickson

Pontiac Aug. 11, 2021 

“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land,” says a U.N. body dedicated to the study of climate science.

A report published Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecasts that there will be no end to warming trends until the emissions of greenhouse gases cease.

Key findings highlighted by the report:

• Global warming of 1.5 C and 2 C will be exceeded during the 21st

  century unless deep reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) and other

  greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades.

• Recent changes across the climate system as a whole are

  unprecedented within a timescale of centuries and even millennia.

• Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather

  and climate extremes in every region across the globe. Evidence

  of  observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy

  precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and, in particular,

  their attribution to human influence, has strengthened since the

  IPCC’s previous assessment, published in 2014.

• Many changes in the climate system are amplified by increases in

  global warming, including the frequency and intensity of hot

  extremes, marine heatwaves, and heavy precipitation, agricultural

  and ecological droughts in some regions, and the proportion of

  intense tropical cyclones, as well as reductions in Arctic sea ice,

  snow cover and permafrost.

• Many changes due to past and future greenhouse gas emissions

  are irreversible for centuries to millennia, especially changes in

  the ocean, ice sheets and global sea levels. 

‘Code red for humanity’

In a statement also released on Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the report as ‘a code red for humanity’.

“The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk,” said the SG.

The IPCC assessment is the sixth it has issued since the Geneva-based organization was created in 1988 to examine the science and assess the risks associated with climate change.

In a parallel process, governments gather each year for a meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to develop plans to address the challenges inherent in a warming planet. The 26th meeting (COP-26) will be held in Glasgow this November.