Big changes needed to meet warming target

LONDON/INCHEON: Society would have to enact ‘‘unprecedented’’ changes to how it consumes energy, travels and builds to meet a lower global warming target or it risks increases in heat waves, floodcausing storms and the chances of drought in some regions, as well as the loss of species, a United Nations report said yesterday.

Keeping Earth’s temperature rise to only 1.5degC rather than the 2degC target agreed to at the Paris Agreement talks in 2015, would have ‘‘clear benefits to people and natural ecosystems,’’ the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a statement announcing the report’s release.

The IPCC report said at the current rate of warming, the world’s temperatures were likely to increase 1.5degC between 2030 and 2052 after an increase of 1degC above preindustrial levels since the mid1800s.

Keeping the 1.5degC target would keep the global sea level rise 10cm lower by 2100 than a 2degC target, the report says. That could reduce flooding and give the people who inhabit the world’s coasts, islands and river deltas time to adapt to climate change.

The lower target would also reduce species loss and extinction and the impact on terrestrial, freshwater and coastal ecosystems, the report said.

‘‘There were doubts if we would be able to differentiate impacts set at 1.5degC and that came so clearly. Even the scientists were surprised to see how much science was already there and how much they could really differentiate and how great are the benefits of limiting global warming at 1.5degC compared to 2degC,’’ IPCC vicechairwoman Thelma Krug said. ‘‘Now more than ever, we know that every bit of warming matters.’’ — Reuters