IPCC adaptation report 'a damning indictment of failed global leadership on climate'.

UN scientists delivered a stark warning today about the impact of climate change on people and the planet, saying that ecosystem collapse, species extinction, deadly heatwaves and floods are among the "unavoidable multiple climate hazards' the world will face over the next two decades due to global warming,

'This report is a dire warning about the consequences of inaction,' said Hoesung Lee, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

'It shows that climate change is a grave and mounting threat to our wellbeing and a healthy planet. Our actions today will shape how people adapt and nature responds to increasing climate risks,' he said, adding: 'Half measures are no longer an option.'

According to the report, human-induced climate change is causing dangerous and widespread disruption in nature and affecting billions of lives all over the world, despite efforts to reduce the risks, with people and ecosystems least able to cope being hardest hit.

This is the second in a series of three reports from the the UN's top climate scientists and its launch comes just over 100 days since the UN climate action summit in Glasgow, COP26, agreed to step up action to limit global warming to 1.5AdegC and stave off the worst effects of climate change.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the first report, issued last August, a 'code red for humanity', and said that 'If we combine forces now, we can avert climate catastrophe.'

IPCC Working Group II Sixth Assessment Report

'Clobbered by climate change'

His take on the latest report is equally stark: he laments that the evidence detailed by IPCC is unlike anything he has ever seen, calling it an 'atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.'

With fact upon fact, this report, which focuses on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, reveals how people, and the planet, are getting 'clobbered' by climate change.

'Nearly half of humanity is living in the danger zone - now. Many ecosystems are at the point of no return - now. Unchecked carbon pollution is forcing the world's most vulnerable on a frog march to destruction - now,' he declared.

Un panneau indiquant "stop au charbon maintenant" est brandi lors d'une manifestation.

Coal is one of the big drivers of carbon emissions.

Unsplash/Markus Spiske

Criminal abdication of leadership

Mr. Guterres said the world's biggest polluters are guilty of arson of our only home.

In the face of such dire evidence, it is essential to meet the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, and the science shows that will require the world to cut emissions by 45 percent by 2030 and achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

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