By Stephanie Ebbs
Global temperatures (click here) could reach an irreversible tipping point in just...
12 years
...if the world doesn’t act dramatically to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, scientists warned in a new report....
It is vitally important to understand the call for changes in the use of fossil fuels began in 1960. The scientists meant it then and they mean it ever more now. The time is running out and it is time to act.
Incheon, Republic of Korea, 8 Oct - Limiting global warming to 1.5ºC (click here) would require rapid, farreaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society, the IPCC said in a new assessment. With clear benefits to people and natural ecosystems, limiting global warming to 1.5ºC compared to 2ºC could go hand in hand with ensuring a more sustainable and equitable society, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said on Monday. The Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC was approved by the IPCC on Saturday in Incheon, Republic of Korea. It will be a key scientific input into the Katowice Climate Change Conference in Poland in December, when governments review the Paris Agreement to tackle climate change....
This report responds to the invitation for IPCC (click here) ‘... to provide a Special Report in 2018 on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways’ contained in the Decision of the 21st Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to adopt the Paris Agreement.1 The IPCC accepted the invitation in April 2016, deciding to prepare this Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty. This Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) presents the key findings of the Special Report, based on the assessment of the available scientific, technical and socio-economic literature2 relevant to global warming of 1.5°C and for the comparison between global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C above preindustrial levels. The level of confidence associated with each key finding is reported using the IPCC calibrated language.3 The underlying scientific basis of each key finding is indicated by references provided to chapter elements. In the SPM, knowledge gaps are identified associated with the underlying chapters of the report.
The petroleum industry sucks all the oxygen out of the room, literally.
October 8, 2018
By Reed Landberg, Chisaki Watanabe and Heesu Lee
The world must invest $2.4trn in clean energy every year through 2035 (click here) and cut the use of coal-fired power to almost nothing by 2050 to avoid catastrophic damage from climate change, according to scientists convened by the United Nations (UN).
Their report published Monday adds pressure on policymakers and businesses to step up their response to global warming, which is boosting sea levels, making storms more violent and exacerbating poverty. The atmosphere is already almost 1 degree Celsius hotter than it was at the start of the industrial revolution and on track to rise 3 degrees by 2100, according to the report.
That’s double the pace targeted under the 2015 Paris climate agreements endorsed by almost 200 nations.
“We are already seeing the consequences of 1 degree of global warming through more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice,” said Panmao Zhai, one of the co-chairs of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which brought together the work of hundreds of researchers and thousands of scientific papers.
Even a rise of 1.5 degrees would have massive consequences, including a “multi-meter rise in sea levels” over hundreds to thousands of years and a mass extinction of plants and animals. With a temperature increase of that scale, of the 105 000 species studied, 6% of insects, 8% of plants and 4% of vertebrates lose half their habitat. Those proportions double with a 2 degree gain....
