The U.N. climate panel sounded a dire warning Monday, saying the world is dangerously close to runaway warming – and that humans are 'unequivocally' to blame.
“The IPCC report underscores the overwhelming urgency of this moment,” U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said in a statement. “The world must come together before the ability to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is out of reach.”Emissions “unequivocally caused by human activities” have pushed today’s average global temperature 1.1C higher than the preindustrial average -- and would have pushed it 0.5C further if not for the tempering effect of pollution in the atmosphere, the report says.
Every additional 0.5C of warming will also boost the intensity and frequency of heat extremes and heavy rainfall, as well as droughts in some regions. Because temperatures fluctuate from year to year, scientists measure climate warming in terms of 20-year averages. "Every bit of warming matters," said IPCC co-author Ed Hawkins, a climate scientist at the University of Reading in Britain. "The consequences get worse and worse as we get warmer."
“We are now committed to some aspects of climate change, some of which are irreversible for hundreds to thousands of years,” said IPCC co-author Tamsin Edwards, a climate scientist at King’s College London. “But the more we limit warming, the more we can avoid or slow down those changes.”But even to slow climate change, the report says, the world is running out of time.
The earth has not been that warm since the Pliocene Epoch roughly 3 million years ago -- when the first ancestors to humans were appearing and oceans were 25 meters higher than today.
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