UN panel issues grim climate change report
Life in some locations on the planet is rapidly reaching the point where it will be too hot for the species that live there to survive, international climate experts said in a report Monday.
“With climate change, some parts of the planet will become uninhabitable,” said German scientist HansOtto Pörtner, co-chair of Working Group II for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which produced the report released in Berlin.
The report assesses scientific literature documenting the devastating effects of human-caused climate change on society and ecosystems worldwide.
The group studied the vulnerability of people and ecosystems to the changing climate and how adaptation could help reduce the risks, said Pörtner and cochair Deborah Roberts of South Africa.
“Human-induced climate change, including more frequent and intense extreme events, has caused widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people, beyond natural climate variability,” the report said.
Urgent action is needed to curb rising temperatures and limit the effects climate change is already having on physical and mental health and well-being, the panel concluded. Some of the anticipated consequences won’t be prevented, but the authors emphasized swift and significant action could help stave off the worst ones.
The IPCC was established by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization in 1988 to provide scientific assessments on climate change and its implications and risks.
The assessments, released every six to seven years, are meant to provide governments around the world with information to develop climate policies.
The intergovernmental panel is in the midst of its sixth assessment.
Monday’s report, prepared by 270 top scientists from 67 countries, builds on a report released last summer by the panel’s Working Group I, which made headlines for its bleak warning of a “code red for humanity.”
Hoesung Lee, chair of the IPCC, said Monday’s report is a “dire warning about the consequences of inaction. It shows that climate change is a grave and mounting threat to our well-being and a healthy planet.”
Increased heat waves, droughts and floods are already exceeding plants’ and animals’ tolerance thresholds, driving mass mortalities in species such as trees and corals, according to the report.
And it’s not just ecosystems and weather being affected by the warming.
Human consequences are being documented around the globe, said Kristie Ebi, a University of Washington professor in the department of global health and a lead author of a chapter on health, wellbeing and communities.
People are suffering and dying from climate change, Ebi said, and rising temperatures are harming pregnancy outcomes.
Sherilee Harper, a lead author on the North American chapter and an associate professor at the University of Alberta’s public health school, said she was personally struck by the effect climate change already is having on the “physical and mental health of many Americans.”
The report highlights a “pressing need to ramp up adaptation,” said Adelle Thomas, a senior Caribbean research associate at Climate Analytics and one of the authors of the report’s summary for policymakers and a chapter on key risks.
Several authors speaking on a call on Sunday weren’t without hope, and the report presents options for quick action to avert the worst consequences.
There are multiple pathways communities, countries and the world can use to achieve climate-resilient development, but the need to act is “urgent,” said Edward Carr, director of Clark University’s department of international development, community and the environment.