The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s latest report on climate change has been described as ‘a code red for humanity’ by United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres. According to Gueterres, “The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk.”
IPCC is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. Here is all you need to know about the new report of climate change:
- Global temperature has increased faster in the last 50-years since 1970. It is more than at least the last 2,000 years. Global warming has reached ocean depths below 2,000 meters.
- Human activities have also increased rain and snow in the last 50 years since 1950. However, some areas are wetter and the other drier.
- Carbon dioxide has increased and is rising higher than in the past 2 million. According to the data, the speed at which atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased since the industrial revolution (1750) is at least ten times faster than at any other time during the last 800,000 years, and between four and five times faster than during the last 56 million years.
- Also, around 85% of carbon dioxide emitted in the atmosphere is due to the burning of fossil fuels. The remaining 15% is due to deforestation and other landscape changes.
- IPCC has also confirmed that heatwaves, droughts, fire weather and heavy rains have also increased in most land regions since 1950.
- Ocean temperature has also increased by 15% in the last 15 years which has caused mass death of marine life.
- The report shows Earth could well exceed the 1.5 C (2.7 F) warming limit by the early 2030s if the carbon dioxide emission is not reduced.
- To reduce global warming and stabilize the climate, the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases must decline significantly. Hence, for doing so negative emissions technologies or nature-based solutions must be used.
