‘Disaster awaits Earth’

NEW REPORT: GLOBAL WARMING IMPACT ON OCEANS, ICE DEVASTATING

Humanity must overhaul how it consumes everything.

Global warming and pollution caused by humanity’s carbon-heavy footprint are ravaging oceans and icy regions in ways that could unleash misery on a global scale, a landmark United Nations report to be unveiled next week warns.

Diplomats and scientists from 195 nations gathered in Monaco yesterday to validate a summary for leaders of observed and projected impacts, ranging from vanishing glaciers and marine heatwaves, to rising seas and unprecedented levels of forced migration.

The underlying 900-page scientific report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the fourth such UN tome in less than a year, with others focused on a 1.50C cap on global warming, the decline of biodiversity, as well as land use and the global food system.

All four conclude that humanity must overhaul how it produces, distributes and consumes almost everything to avoid the worst ravages of global warming and environmental degradation.

The barrage of bad news from science and a newly alarmed public demanding decisive action are the backdrop for a key UN climate summit in New

York on Monday, designed to push countries into setting more ambitious carbon cutting goals.

Current pledges – if honoured – would see Earth’s surface heat up more than 30C above preindustrial levels. The 2015 Paris climate treaty calls for capping global warming at “well below” 20C, and 1.50C is possible.

A single degree of warming has already seen a crescendo of extreme weather, including killer heat waves and superstorms amped up by rising seas. “Some of the impacts of climate change on our oceans are now irreversible and others are looking increasingly inevitable,” said Greenpeace International scientist, Melissa Wang. “At current emissions rates, we are dumping one million tons of CO₂ into the oceans every hour.” Oceans and the frozen zones cover more than 80% of Earth’s surface. – AFP

Impacts of climate change on oceans now irreversible