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Topline
Global temperatures will likely exceed the 1.5C limit set by the Paris Climate agreement within the next 20 years unless swift and drastic action is taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to a comprehensive assessment of climate science by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading authority on the subject.
The IPCC warned swift action is needed if the global heating is to be kept below 1.5C limits set by … [+]
Key Facts
“Unprecedented” changes to the climate have occurred over hundreds of thousands of years, the IPCC panel warned, and the planet was likely hotter over the past decade than during the last 125,000 year period.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are also at the highest point in 2 million years, the report said, with agriculture and fossil fuels driving levels of nitrous oxide and methane to 800,000-year highs.
“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, oceans and land,” the report said, a far more certain and clear assignment of responsibility for the climate crisis than the group has given before.
Even in best case scenarios, some of the changes—including sea level rise—are irreversible for millennia.
Drastic and immediate cuts in carbon emissions are needed to meet the 1.5C target and prevent further climate breakdown, the IPCC warned.
This is a developing story.
