Urgent action needed to avoid climate disaster, key UN report warns

Source: France 24

October 8, 2018 at 02:18

© AFP Photo/Mario Hoppmann/European Geosciences Union | A September 13, 2016, handout photo provided by the European Geosciences Union shows a polar bear testing the strength of thin sea ice in the Arctic.

Preventing an extra single degree of heat could make a life-or-death difference in the next few decades for multitudes of people and ecosystems on this fast-warming planet, an international panel of scientists reported Sunday.

But they provide little hope the world will rise to the challenge.

The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its gloomy report at a meeting in Incheon, South Korea.

In the 728-page document, the U.N. organization detailed how Earth’s weather, health and ecosystems would be in better shape if the world’s leaders could somehow limit future human-caused warming to just 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (a half degree Celsius) from now, instead of the globally agreed-upon goal of 1.8 degrees F (1 degree C). Among other things:

Half as many people would suffer from lack of water.
There would be fewer deaths and illnesses from heat, smog and infectious diseases.
Seas would rise nearly 4 inches (0.1 meters) less.
Half as many animals with back bones and plants would lose the majority of their habitats.
There would be substantially fewer heat waves, downpours and droughts.
The West Antarctic ice sheet might not kick into irreversible melting.
And it just may be enough to save most of the world’s coral reefs from dying.

“For some people this is a life-or-death situation without a doubt,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, a lead author on the report.

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