Climate change is wreaking havoc on the planet, in some instances irreversibly, and the world isn’t reducing planet-warming pollution fast enough to stop it. That’s the blunt takeaway from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international body made up of the world’s leading climate scientists. Its latest report on the science and consequences of global warming was seven years in the making, writes POLITICO’s E&E News reporter Chelsea Harvey. “The report clearly notes that the effects of climate change grow worse and worse with every little incremental bit of additional warming,” Chelsea told Power Switch. “So it’s imperative to reduce emissions as swiftly as possible in order to limit even worse outcomes in the future as much as we can.” The assessment sends a warning that the effects of climate change are already happening. And humanity is not on track to curb carbon pollution from fossil fuel production, agriculture and other sources enough to halt warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, the most ambitious international target. In fact, at the rate the world is burning carbon, the 1.5 C threshold will likely arrive in the next decade. The world has already warmed 1 degree since the preindustrial era. Wildfires, floods, droughts and hurricanes are growing more severe. Sea levels are swelling as coastal communities and island nations face existential threats from encroaching waters. Intensifying droughts and agricultural disruptions are creating food and water insecurity. Infectious diseases are surging. And people around the world are increasingly being displaced by climate-fueled disasters. Human mortality rates from climate disasters were 15 times higher in highly vulnerable regions of the world, compared with more developed places, the report found. Sounding the alarm The authors' message is clear that societies must take immediate — even radical — action to strip carbon pollution from every sector. This means overhauling just about every aspect of human life, Chelsea said. The report also emphasizes the need for nations to adapt, given that some climate impacts, like sea-level rise, are irreversible (well, for at least hundreds or thousands of years). Even more unsettling: Far too many scientific unknowns exist about how and when the most devastating impacts will hit, write POLITICO reporters Karl Mathiesen and Zia Weise. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said the report’s findings mean nations need to “massively fast-track climate efforts.” He called on the European Union as well as the United States and other wealthy countries to hit their climate targets by 2040 instead of 2050 in order to avert dangerous global warming, write POLITICO reporters Zia Weise and Federica Di Sario. This is a tall order. The United States, for example, isn’t even on track to meet its 2050 targets. And President Joe Biden just approved a massive oil project expected to release 280 million metric tons of carbon pollution into the atmosphere over 30 years.
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