London, Europe Brief News – UN chief Antonio Guterres issued a new report on climate change as a “survival guide for humanity”.
Efforts made so far to avoid passing a dangerous global threshold have been “insufficient to tackle climate change,” but multiple options are still available.
“Mainstreaming effective and equitable climate action will not only reduce losses and damages for nature and people, it will also provide wider benefits,” said IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee. “This Synthesis Report underscores the urgency of taking more ambitious action and shows that, if we act now, we can still secure a livable sustainable future for all.”
“Today’s IPCC report is a how-to guide to defuse the climate time-bomb,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. “It is a survival guide for humanity. As it shows, the 1.5-degree limit is achievable. But it will take a quantum leap in climate action.”
Clean energy and technology can be exploited to avoid the growing climate disaster, the report says.
But at a meeting in Switzerland to agree their findings, climate scientists warned a key global temperature goal will likely be missed.
Their report lays out how rapid cuts to fossil fuels can avert the worst effects of climate change.
In response to the findings, UN secretary general Antonio Guterres says that all countries should bring forward their net zero plans by a decade. These targets are supposed to rapidly cut the greenhouse gas emissions that warm our planet’s atmosphere.
“There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all,” the report states.
Governments had previously agreed to act to avoid global temperature rise going above 1.5C. But the world has already warmed by 1.1C and now experts say that it is likely to breach 1.5C in the 2030s.
