Houston Chronicle

U.N.: Countries must act faster to limit climate change effects

- By Seth Borenstein and Frank Jordans

BERLIN — Humanity still has a chance, close to the last, to prevent the worst of climate change’s future harms, a top United Nations panel of scientists said Monday.

But doing so requires quickly slashing nearly two-thirds of carbon pollution by 2035, the Intergover­nmental Panel on Climate Change said. The U.N. chief said it more bluntly, calling for an end to new fossil fuel exploratio­n and for rich countries to quit coal, oil and gas by 2040.

“Humanity is on thin ice — and that ice is melting fast,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “Our world needs climate action on all fronts — everything, everywhere, all at once.”

Stepping up his pleas for action on fossil fuels, Guterres called for rich countries to accelerate their target for achieving net-zero emissions to as early as 2040 and for developing nations to aim for 2050 — about a decade earlier than most current targets. He also called for them to stop using coal by 2030 and 2040, respective­ly, and to ensure carbonfree electricit­y generation in the developed world by 2035, meaning no gas-fired power plants.

That date is key because nations soon have to come up with goals for pollution reduction by 2035, according to the 2015 Paris Agreement. After contentiou­s debate, the U.N. science report approved Sunday concluded that to stay under the warming limit set in Paris, the world needs to cut 60 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, compared with 2019, adding a new target not previously mentioned in six previous reports issued since 2018.

“The choices and actions implemente­d in this decade will have impacts for thousands of years,” the report said, calling climate change “a threat to human well-being and planetary health.”

“We are not on the right track, but it’s not too late,’’ said report co-author and water scientist Aditi Mukherji. “Our intention is really a message of hope, and not that of doomsday.’’

With the world only a few tenths of a degree away from the globally accepted goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, since pre-industrial times, scientists stressed a sense of urgency. The goal was adopted as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, and the world has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius.

This is likely the last warning the Nobel Peace Prize-winning collection of scientists will be able to make about the 1.5 mark because their next set of reports may well come after Earth has breached the mark or is locked into exceeding it soon, said several scientists, including authors of the report.

After 1.5, “the risks are starting to pile on,” said report co-author Francis Johnson, a climate, land and policy scientist at the Stockholm Environmen­t Institute. The report mentions “tipping points” around that temperatur­e of species extinction, including coral reefs, irreversib­le melting of ice sheets and sea level rise on the order of several yards.

“The window is closing if emissions are not reduced as quickly as possible,” Johnson said. “Scientists are rather alarmed.”

 ?? Associated Press file photo ?? A family walks in Timbulslok­o in Indonesia’s province of Central Java last July. Rising seas in Timbulslok­o have led people to raise the floors in their homes.
Associated Press file photo A family walks in Timbulslok­o in Indonesia’s province of Central Java last July. Rising seas in Timbulslok­o have led people to raise the floors in their homes.

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