The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] has issued a new report, warning that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius as per the 2015 Paris Agreement will be unachievable without immediate and large-scale reductions of carbon emissions.
The harrowing document is the first in a series of four reports that will be released over the coming months as part of the IPCC’s current assessment cycle of climate change and the state of the planet. It comes ahead of the UK’s hosting of the next UN climate summit, known as COP26, in November.
The first of the reports, which comes as the clearest warning yet of the devastating impact of climate change, makes for “sobering reading” according to UK prime minister, Boris Johnson.
Johnson said: “We know what must be done to limit global warming - consign coal to history and shift to clean energy sources, protect nature and provide climate finance for countries on the frontline.”
The report also warns that a rise in sea levels of around two metres by the end of the century “cannot be ruled out”, nor can a five-metre increase by 2150, a phenomenon which has the potential to affect millions of lives.
Beyond the 1.5 degrees Celsius target under the Paris Agreement, tipping points that make certain symptoms of climate change irreversible become far more likely. The report goes on to explain that if global warming is to exceed a temperature rise of two degrees Celsius, then heat extremes could have a significant impact on agriculture and health across the world.
UN secretary general António Guterres called the first of the reports a “code red for humanity”.
He added: “If we combine forces now, we can avert climate catastrophe. But, as today's report makes clear, there is no time for delay and no room for excuses. I count on government leaders and all stakeholders to ensure COP26 is a success.
“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.”
Indeed, the report concludes that greenhouse gases emitted from human activity have warmed the global climate system, and the global temperature could rise above 1.5 degrees Celsius within just over a decade.
It attributes greenhouse gas emissions from 1850-1900 as being responsible for roughly 1.1 degrees Celsius of global warming, adding that only “strong and sustained” reductions on carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases could limit climate change.
It could, however, take 20 to 30 years for global temperatures to stabilise, while other positive effects such as better air quality would become evident more quickly.
The report also found global surface temperature to be 1.09 degrees Celsius higher in the decade between 2011-2020 than in 1850-1900, with the past five years coming as the hottest on record since 1850.
The rise in sea level has almost tripled compared to 1901-1971, and human activity has been attributed to be 90 per cent responsible for receding Arctic sea-ice since the 1990s. Meanwhile, it was said to be “virtually certain” that cold weather phenomena have become less frequent and severe since the 1950s, while hotter events such as heatwaves have become both more frequent and more intense.
Other current phenomena attributed to climate change in the report include more intense rainfall and subsequent flooding, worsened droughts in other regions, coastal areas suffering from rising sea levels, and an increase in permafrost thawing in colder states.
Indeed, recent weeks have seen several regions have been hit by extreme weather conditions with flooding seen across the south of England and western Europe, while wildfires have torn through areas of the US, Canada, and eastern and southern Europe.
Although some climate experts say that limiting global temperature rising to 1.5 degrees Celsius will be “virtually impossible” and some effects of climate change are now “irreversible” there is some optimism that major intervention now could prevent catastrophe.
Yet, a UN study published earlier in 2021 uncovered that human dependency on fossil fuels could increase and pledges made by countries across the world to cut emissions were still significantly short of the action required to mitigate climate change.
All of this means that ministers will come under greater pressure to deliver on the Paris Agreement both ahead of and at the COP26 summit, with over 200 countries having thrown their weight behind the accord six years ago.
According to the IPCC, moving away from fossil fuel usage toward sustainable energy sources will be a gargantuan effort that commands “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes” across society, emphasising that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is likely to “go hand in hand with ensuring a more sustainable and equitable” world.
