The Earth is expected to reach the critical level of global warming early in the next decade. To avoid this point of no return, governments will need to make an immediate and drastic shift away from fossil fuelsalerted in a report the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of experts convened by the United Nations (UN).
The forecast indicates that global average temperatures would rise 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels in the first half of the 2030s. This would spell the failure of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, in which nearly every nation in the world pledged to take action to prevent global warming from exceeding that threshold.
The consequences are already impacting the entire planet: catastrophic heat waves, unprecedented droughts and the extinction of various species. But at that point, experts say, everything would be much more difficult for humanity to control. “The point of no return is approaching”insisted today the UN Secretary General, António Guterres.
Hundreds of scientists from around the world participated in the report. The text was approved last week by 195 countries, reported PA. This means that states have accepted their findings as legitimate recommendations to support their policies against global warming.
One last chance to prevent global warming from reaching critical level
There is still one last chance. To prevent global warming from reaching a critical level, industrialized countries will have to cut greenhouse gases in half by 2030. Then, in the early 2050s, they will have to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions entirely. If this is achieved, the report says, the world would have a 50% chance to limit warming to 1.5℃.
The planet recorded a record number of CO2 emissions last year. They were issued in total 36.8 billion tons of polluting gases. The fossil fuel structure that exists plus the one planned—coal power plants, oil wells, factories, automobiles, and so on—will produce enough carbon dioxide to warm the planet about 2℃ before the end of this century.
“Humanity walks on thin ice and that ice is melting fast… Our world needs climate action on all fronts. Everything, everywhere, all at once.”
Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations.
The published report is not one more. It offers the most comprehensive analysis known to date, as it is the final point in a series of reports summarizing the research on global warming conducted by this panel of experts since the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. The next round of reports will not be published until the second half of this decade. However, by then, it might already be too late to take the necessary measures, the researchers explain.
States will meet in Dubai in December this year for the United Nations-sponsored climate summit. At the meeting, global efforts to reduce polluting gas emissions and requests for help from the most impoverished countries will be evaluated.