Time.news – “The worst is yet to come and our children and grandchildren will pay the price, more than ourselves”. This is the unprecedented alarm contained in a report on the climate of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations.
Many effects of global warming, especially those affecting the oceans and polar areas, “are irreversible for the next centuries or millennia“, warns the report which predicts, for example, that sea level will inevitably continue to rise between 28 and 55 centimeters by the end of the century from current levels. In the very long term, sea level will rise between two and three meters in the next 2000 years if global warming remains at 1.5 degrees as proposed by the Paris agreement, but it could exceed 20 meters with a rise of 5 degrees.
The new IPCC document, which has been analyzing the effects of climate change on the planet since 1988, also indicates that mountain and pole glaciers will continue to melt for decades or even centuries, a phenomenon more pronounced in the northern hemisphere than in the southern one. .
The new report is “a red code for humanity”, the UN secretary general admitted. Antonio Guterres, for which it is now inevitable to overcome fossil fuels, “before they destroy our planet”.
The Planet will experience an “unprecedented” increase in extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts, storms or floods even if global warming will be limited to +1.5 degrees centigrade, the scientists point out. “We will experience unprecedented events, whether in their scale, frequency, time or location,” the experts noted, warning that some of these phenomena may occur simultaneously.
The British government, which will host the next COP26, has called for urgent global action “because” human activity is damaging the planet at an alarming rate “.” It is clear that the next decade will be crucial to ensure the future of the our planet “, warned the prime minister, Boris Johnson. “I hope the IPCC report is a wake-up call for the world to act now, before we meet in Glasgow in November for the decisive summit of the COP26“, he added.
But according to the president of the UN World Conference (COP26), Alok Sharma, “we cannot afford to wait two, five or 10 years: this is the moment, either we act now or we won’t have more time”. For the EU vice president responsible for climate action, Frans Timmermans. “There is still time to prevent uncontrolled climate change, but only if the world develops zero-carbon policies, only if we act decisively now and all act together.”
The recipe for bringing the thermometer back into balance is to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and bring them to net zero by 2050. If we do not reverse the course, scientists point out, we could reach 3 degrees in 2030 and in 2,100 degrees. up to 4.
234 scientists from 195 countries worked on the publication, meeting since July 26 behind closed doors and virtually to negotiate line by line, word by word, the forecasts of the UN experts on climate that update the latest drafted seven years ago. All this, while natural disasters follow one another all over the world, from floods in Germany and China to huge fires in Europe and North America. One of the central issues will be the world’s ability to limit global warming to + 1.5 ° C compared to the pre-industrial era, the ideal goal of the Paris Agreement.
.