{"id":5957,"date":"2022-03-02T09:40:54","date_gmt":"2022-03-02T09:40:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euromenaenergy.com\/?p=5957"},"modified":"2022-03-02T09:40:54","modified_gmt":"2022-03-02T09:40:54","slug":"liveable-future-on-earth-at-risk-un-climate-report-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/?p=5957","title":{"rendered":"‘Liveable future’ on Earth at risk, UN climate report warns"},"content":{"rendered":"

A landmark UN\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0warned on Monday that time had nearly run out to ensure a \u201cliveable future\u201d for all, detailing a horrifying \u201catlas of human suffering\u201d and warning that far worse was to come.<\/p>\n

Species extinction, ecosystem collapse, insect-borne disease, deadly heatwaves and megastorms, water shortages, reduced crop yields \u2014 all are measurably worse due to rising temperatures, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said.<\/p>\n

In the last year alone, the world has seen a cascade of unprecedented floods, heatwaves and wildfires across four continents.<\/p>\n

Such events will accelerate in coming decades even if the fossil fuel pollution driving climate change is rapidly brought to heel, the 195-nation IPCC warned.<\/p>\n

As nations struggle to bend the curve of carbon dioxide emissions downward, they must also prepare for a climate onslaught that in some cases can no longer be avoided, the report made clear.<\/p>\n

For UN chief Antonio Guterres, it stands as a \u201cdamning indictment\u201d of failed leadership that he described as nothing short of \u201ccriminal\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world’s biggest polluters are guilty of arson of our only home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Even Russia’s\u00a0invasion<\/a>\u00a0of Ukraine cannot distract from the truths laid bare in the 3,600-page report and its summary for policymakers, said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe international community must urgently continue to pursue ambitious climate action, even as we face other pressing global challenges,\u201d he said in a written statement.<\/p>\n

Svitlana Krakovska, who headed Ukraine’s delegation, spoke passionately at the conference’s final virtual plenary about the link between conflict and global warming.<\/p>\n

‘Root’ of war and warming<\/h2>\n

\u201cHuman-induced climate change and the war on Ukraine have the same roots \u2014 fossil fuels \u2014 and our dependence on them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Among the report’s key takeaways was the intertwined fates of human and natural systems.<\/p>\n

It stressed that climate change cannot be tamed unless degraded forests and oceans that stock carbon are restored and protected; and the ecosystems on which life forms depend for clean water, air and soil will not survive intact in a world of runaway warming.<\/p>\n

The report made clear that a viable future rests on a knife’s edge.<\/p>\n

Some dire impacts are already irreversible, such as the likely demise of nearly all shallow water corals.<\/p>\n

Other points-of-no-return lie just beyond the Paris Agreement’s aspirational target of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the report warned.<\/p>\n

The 2015 treaty enjoins nations to hold the increase in temperatures to \u201cwell below\u201d 2\u00b0C, but recent science has left no doubt that a 1.5\u00b0C threshold is far safer.<\/p>\n

Even in optimistic scenarios of rapid reductions in carbon pollution, projections of climate impacts are sobering.<\/p>\n

Up to 14 per cent of land species face a \u201cvery high\u201d risk of extinction with only 1.5\u00b0C of warming, the IPCC said, bolstering calls for conservation of 30 to 50pc of the world’s land and ocean territory.<\/p>\n

The threat grows with every fraction of a degree.<\/p>\n

Adaptation<\/h2>\n

By 2050 there will be more than a billion people in coastal areas highly vulnerable to storm surges amplified by rising seas by 2050. Per usual, the poorest will often be the hardest hit.<\/p>\n

An additional 410 million people will be exposed to water scarcity from severe drought at 2\u00b0C of warming, and up to 80m will be at risk of hunger by mid-century.<\/p>\n

By 2100, around $10 trillion of assets will be in flood-prone coastal areas in a moderate greenhouse gas emissions scenario, according to the report.<\/p>\n

The IPCC assessment \u2014 the sixth since 1990 \u2014 highlights the need to cope with unavoidable climate impacts on almost every page.<\/p>\n

Overall, the IPCC warns, global warming is outpacing our preparations for a climate-addled world.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor people in Africa living on the front line of climate change, it is adapt or die,\u201d said Peter Verkooijen, CEO of the Rotterdam-based Global Centre on Adaptation.<\/p>\n

The report also spotlights irreversible and potentially catastrophic changes in the climate system known as tipping points, triggered at different thresholds of global heating.<\/p>\n

These include the melting of ice sheets atop Greenland and the West Antarctic that could lift oceans 13 metres; the morphing of the Amazon basin from tropical forest to savannah; and the disruption of ocean currents that distribute heat across the globe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and planetary health,\u201d the report concluded.<\/p>\n

Further delays in cutting carbon pollution and preparing for impacts already in the pipeline \u201cwill miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A landmark UN\u00a0report\u00a0warned on Monday that time had nearly run out to ensure a \u201cliveable future\u201d for all, detailing a horrifying \u201catlas of human suffering\u201d and warning that far worse was to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5958,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,23],"tags":[46,48,57,68,76,77,82,86,87,90,96,99,103,107,109,111,113,137,139,146,148,160,174,183,184,201,202,209,222,230,232,233,244,246,249,256,262,263,267,277,279,280,285,288],"class_list":["post-5957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-politics","tag-aramco","tag-athens","tag-baroudi","tag-carbon","tag-climate","tag-climate-change","tag-co2","tag-cyprus","tag-decarbonising","tag-democracy","tag-doha","tag-eastmed","tag-egypt","tag-embargo","tag-emissions","tag-energy","tag-energy-peace","tag-gas","tag-gazprom","tag-greece","tag-greenenergy","tag-international-maritime-disputes","tag-lebanon","tag-maritime-boundaries-east-mediterranean","tag-maritime-disputes","tag-offshore","tag-oil","tag-opec","tag-pollution","tag-poverty-alleviation","tag-putin","tag-qatar","tag-rosneft","tag-roudi","tag-russia","tag-saudi","tag-solar","tag-solar-power","tag-straddling-hydrocarbons-reserves","tag-total","tag-trump","tag-turkey","tag-unclos","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}