‘Point of no return’: UN report to provide stark climate warning

New synthesis report will play a central role when governments meet in Dubai in December for the UN climate summit.

A major new report from the United Nations to be released Monday is expected to be a sobering reminder that time is running out if humanity is to avoid crossing a dangerous global warming threshold.

The report from hundreds of the world’s top scientists is the culmination of a series summarizing the research on global warming that has been amassed since the Paris climate agreement was signed in 2015.

It was endorsed by countries at the end of a week-long meeting of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in the Swiss city of Interlaken, meaning governments have accepted the findings as authoritative advice to guide their actions. base.

At the start of the meeting, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned delegates that the planet is “close to the point of return” and that they risk exceeding the internationally agreed limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of global warming since the pre-industrial era. time.

That’s because global emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases continue to increase – mainly from fossil fuel burning, deforestation and intensive agriculture – when in fact they should be falling rapidly.

Governments agreed in Paris almost eight years ago to try to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C or at least keep it well below 2°C (3.6°F). Since then, scientists have increasingly claimed that any warming above the lower limit would put humanity in grave danger.

Global average temperatures have risen by 1.1°C since the 19th century, but Guterres last week urged that the 1.5°C target remains possible “with rapid and deep emissions reductions across all sectors of the global economy.” “.

Central role

Monday’s report comes after the IPCC made it clear two years ago that climate change is clearly caused by human activity and refined its forecasts for a range of possible scenarios depending on how much greenhouse gas continues to be released.

The following year, it published a report concluding that the effects of global warming are already being felt and that nearly half of the world’s population is “highly vulnerable to climate change”. Two months later, it outlined what needed to be done to mitigate the damage of the already unavoidable warming and prevent a further dangerous rise in temperature; the sharp drop in solar and wind costs would make that easier, it noted.

Three other IPCC special reports focused on the oceans, land and the 1.5°C target. The next set of reports will not be published until the second half of this decade, when experts say it may be too late to take further action to meet that ambitious goal.

Governments agreed at Egypt’s climate summit last year to create a fund to help pay for the damage a warming planet is doing to vulnerable countries, but failed to take new measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions. to decrease.

The new synthesis report published Monday will play a vital role as governments meet in Dubai in December for this year’s UN climate talks. The meeting will be the first to take stock of global efforts to reduce emissions since the Paris agreement, and hear calls from poorer countries asking for more aid.

Guterres has said fossil fuel companies should hand over some of their huge profits to help climate change victims.

“All in all, this report is another nail in the fossil fuel industry’s coffin,” said Stephan Singer of Climate Action Network International.

“The new IPCC report clearly shows what is on the wall. Governments have no excuse to ignore the emphatic warning of this critical decade. They must act quickly to reject fossil fuels and stop any new expansion of oil, gas and coal.”

Oxfam’s climate policy chief Nafkote Dabi said: “This is literally the last chapter. Science shows that it is still possible to limit global warming to 1.5°C, but just barely. Unless we pull the emergency brakes on deadly carbon pollution, ‘unheard of’ heat waves, storms, droughts and floods will become more frequent and affect more places and people.”