The United Nations panel on climate change on Monday said global warming was dangerously close to being out of control and humans were “unequivocally” to blame.
Report from the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere were high enough to guarantee climate disruption for decades if not centuries.
It said the deadly heat waves, gargantuan hurricanes and other weather extremes already happening would only become more severe.
Monday alone saw 500,000 acres of forest burning in California, while in Venice tourists waded through ankle-deep water in St. Mark’s Square.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres described the report as a “code red for humanity”.
He said “The alarm bells are deafening,” he said in a statement. “This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet.”
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In an interview with Reuters, activist Greta Thunberg, called on the public and media to put “massive” pressure on governments to act.
Drawing on more than 14,000 scientific studies, the IPCC report gives the most comprehensive and detailed picture yet of how climate change is altering the natural world and what could still be ahead.
According to the report, unless immediate, rapid and large-scale action is taken to reduce emissions, the average global temperature is likely to reach or cross the 1.5-degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming threshold within 20 years.
The pledges to cut emissions made so far are nowhere near enough to start reducing level of greenhouse gases.
They are mostly carbon dioxide (CO2) from burning fossil fuels accumulated in the atmosphere. (Reuters/NAN) (www.nannews.ng )
