Rising seas, melting ice caps and other effects of a warming climate may be irreversible for centuries and are unequivocally driven by greenhouse-gas emissions from human activity, a scientific panel working under the auspices of the United Nations said Monday in a new report.
World leaders—especially those from the West and island nations that are especially vulnerable to climate change—deemed the report a call to action ahead of international climate negotiations scheduled for November. Many called for cutbacks in fossil-fuel consumption, which the report identifies as a leading driver of the rise in levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
“The impacts of the climate crisis, from extreme heat to wildfires to intense rainfall and flooding, will only continue to intensify unless we choose another course for ourselves and generations to come,” said U.S. climate envoy John Kerry. “What the world requires now is real action.”
Quoted from:
Hotz, R.L. & Puko, T. (2021, August 9). Some Climate Change Effects May Be Irreversible, U.N. Panel Says. The Wall Street Journal.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-climate-change-effects-may-be-irreversible-u-n-panel-report-says-11628496000?mod=WSJ_ENG_NAS_CB_CLIMATE_ADHC_NAH
Climate change is widespread, rapid and intensifying. That is the key finding of the latest scientific report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It finds changes in the Earth’s climate in every region and across the whole climate system. Many changes are unprecedented in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years. Some, such as continued sea-level rise, are irreversible over hundreds to thousands of years. The report points to strong and sustained reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to limit climate change. Benefits for air quality would come quickly, while global temperatures would take 20-30 years to stabilize.
The report, issued by the IPCC’s Working Group I and approved by 195 member governments, is the first in a series leading up to the 2022 IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. It includes a closer look at the regional dimensions of climate change and builds on advances in attributing specific weather and climate events to climate change.
Quoted from:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (2021, August 9). Climate change 2021: The physical science Basis. United Nations.
https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/reports
Key reports on climate impacts and solutions from around the United Nations.