A landmark UN report published in 2019 underlined the glaring gap between agreed targets to tackle global warming and the reality.
Compiled by the UN World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the report, titled “United in Science”, includes details on the state of the climate and presents trends in the emissions and atmospheric concentrations of the main greenhouse gases.
The report said that increasing climate impacts from melting ice caps to sea-level rise and extreme weather were to blame for the record as the global average temperature had increased by 1.1°C since pre-industrial (1850 – 1900) times and 0.2°C compared with figures recorded from 2011 – 2015.
(Although the Industrial Revolution occurred before 1850 the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has used the reference period 1850–1900 to represent pre-industrial temperature because it is the earliest period with near-global observations.)
The report highlights the urgency of fundamental socio-economic transformations and carbon-curbing actions in key sectors such as land use and energy to avert dangerous global temperature increases, with potentially irreversible impacts. It also examines tools to support both mitigation and adaptation.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told young activists after the release of the report that he feared “there is a serious conflict between people and nature, between people and the planet.”
Saying that there is no time to lose, with so many people around the world already suffering from the impacts of climate change, the UN chief has been bluntly telling world leaders “don’t come to the summit with beautiful speeches, come with concrete plans”, including carbon neutrality plans for 2050, options to tackle fossil fuel subsidies, taxing carbon and a possible end to new coal power sources after next year.
The findings presented by the report’s experts spotlight the sense of urgency. Amid growing recognition that climate impacts are hitting harder and sooner than climate assessments indicated even a decade ago, there is now a real risk of crossing critical tipping points, according to scientists.
Widespread and long-lasting heatwaves, record-breaking fires and other devastating events such as tropical cyclones, floods and drought have had major impacts on socio-economic development and the environment.
Moreover, as climate change intensifies, cities are particularly vulnerable to impacts such as heat stress and can play a key role in reducing emissions locally and globally.
“Strategies for mitigation and for upscaling adaptive risk management are necessary going forward. Neither is adequate in isolation given the pace of climate change and the magnitude of its impacts,” says the report, which warns that to stop a global temperature increase of more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, the level of ambition needs to be tripled.
The scientists say that “only immediate and all-inclusive action encompassing deep decarbonisation complemented by ambitious policy measures, protection and enhancement of carbon sinks, biodiversity, and efforts to remove CO2 from the atmosphere will enable us to meet the Paris Agreement”.
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