The stakes in the struggle against global warming are higher than ever, the head of the U.N. climate science body said Monday as close to 200 nations met to vote on what is certain to be a devastating report about the effects of climate change.
Species extinction, ecosystem breakdown, mosquito-carrying diseases, deadly heat, water scarcity, and reduced crop yields are all already measure worse as a result of global warming.
As recently as last year, developing countries experienced a cascade of unprecedented floods, heat waves, and wildfires on four continents.
All these impacts will intensify in the coming decades, even as the carbon pollution that drives climate change is quickly contained, warns the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
A crucial 40-page summary for politicians and officials-the underlying chapters that are thousands of pages long in length and will be reviewed line by text-is due out on February 28.
Evaluation – this will be the sixth since 1990 – is organised into three parts, each involving a individual voluntary “working group” of hundreds of scientists.
It will also argue that vulnerability to extreme weather events even if exacerbated as a result of global warming can be reduced through improved planned and prepared, the draft, seen by AFP, is clear:
Certain – like melting the permafrost, which stores twice as much carbon as the atmosphere, could contribute to global warming on its own.
