The role of human influence in climate change is “undisputed” with many of the impacts now irreversible.
Within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest report, the group assessed the findings of 234 authors from 66 countries, discovering that climate change is being observed across every region in the world.
Many of the changes now being seen are unprecedented in thousands of years, and some changes now set in motion will be irreversible over hundreds of thousands of years.
“This report is a reality check,” said IPCC Working Group I co-chair Valérie Masson-Delmotte. “We now have a much clearer picture of the past, present and future climate, which is essential for understanding where we are headed, what can be done and how we can prepare.”
Climate Change 2021: the Physical Science Basis, is the first in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), with following reports set to come from Working Group II on dealing with impacts, adaptation and vulnerability and Working Group III on dealing with the mitigation of climate change in 2022.
The report details the need for strong and sustained reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to limit climate change. This would provide benefits in air quality quickly, but it could take 20-30 years for global temperatures to stabilise still. Immediate, rapid and large-scale action is needed to reduce emissions if the world is to keep warming close to 1.5°C or even 2°C.
Read more: CURRENT
