The U.N. report on climate change delivered a warning to humanity

August 10, 2021: -On Monday, the world’s leading climate scientists delivered their starkest warning yet to deepen the climate emergency, with some of the changes already set in motion thought to be “irreversible” for the future centuries. A huge anticipated report by the U.N.’s climate panel warning that limiting global warming to near to 1.5 degrees Celsius or 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels “will be beyond reach” in the coming two decades without immediate, rapid, and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

To ensure, the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold is a crucial global target because beyond this level; and the tipping points become likely. Tipping points refer to a change that is irreversible in the climate system, locking in the coming global heating.

At 2 degrees Celsius of global warming, heat extremes would often reach critical tolerance thresholds for agriculture and health, the report says.

U.N. Secretary-General António 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 burn and deforestation choked our planet and had put billions of people at risk,” Guterres said.

On Friday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest findings, approved by 195 member states, deal with climate change’s physical science basis and outline how humans are altering the planet. It is the first installment of four reports released under the IPCC’s present assessment cycle, with subsequent reports scheduled to be published in the coming year.

The first part of the Sixth Assessment Report of IPCC provides world leaders with a gold standard summation of modern climate science ahead of U.N. climate talks, known as COP26, in November.

Reacting to the report’s publication, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry said the report underscored the “overwhelming urgency of this moment.” U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he hoped it could be a “wake-up call” for global leaders ahead of COP26.