Environment

Report warns window to save climate closing ‘rapidly’

Geneva, Mar 20 (EFE).- The window of opportunity to save the planet from the climate crisis is closing quickly, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in a new report published Monday.

The result of eight years of work compiled by dozens of scientists, the latest situation report is the first published in the age of the 2016 Paris climate agreement, which sought to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5C over pre-industrial levels. We are currently sitting at 1.1C above pre-industrial levels, and temperatures could rise to 2.8C if we do not control emissions.

“There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all,” the report warned, calling for “deep, rapid and sustained” action to curtail the damaging effects of the climate crisis.

To mitigate the effects of the climate crisis, the study advocated in favour of sustainable energy sources, transport and changes in cultural attitudes among humans.

IPCC chair Hoesung Lee in the statement said: “Mainstreaming effective and equitable climate action will not only reduce losses and damages for nature and people, it will also provide wider benefits.”

He added: “This Synthesis Report underscores the urgency of taking more ambitious action and shows that, if we act now, we can still secure a liveable sustainable future for all.”

The IPCC study said the world would need to slash its emissions of greenhouse gases in half by 2030 in order to hit carbon neutrality targets between 2050-70.

It also recalled that since 1850 the world has already released 80% of the greenhouse gas levels required to keep global warming capped to 1.5C.

The report warned that in the last 50 years the world has warmed quicker than during any other five decade period in the last 2,000 years.

Sea levels rose some 20 centimetres between 1901 and 2018. Over the next 2,000 years, sea levels could rise between one and two meters, if temperatures are kept at 1.5C, or as high as six if temperatures surpass 2C above pre-industrial levels.

But the report added that there was still hope.

The panel’s chair Lee added: “Transformational changes are more likely to succeed where there is trust, where everyone works together to prioritize risk reduction, and where benefits and burdens are shared equitably,” Lee said.

“We live in a diverse world in which everyone has different responsibilities and different opportunities to bring about change. Some can do a lot while others will need support to help them manage the change.”EFE

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