UN report warns world nearing critical global warming threshold
UN Environment Programme urges swift shift to renewables as world approaches 1.5°C warming limit, warning of escalating extreme weather and risks.
Key Takeaways
AIA report by the United Nations Environment Programme has warned that the world is close to surpassing the 1.5°C global warming threshold above pre-industrial levels, amid increasing heatwaves, floods, and extreme weather events.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stressed that every rise in temperature would result in human and economic losses, worsen inequality, and cause potentially irreversible damage to ecosystems.
Guterres called for any overshoot of the 1.5°C threshold to be limited and brief, emphasizing the urgent need for rapid action to curb global warming.
Rising risks and threatened sectors
The report stated that continued warming will intensify extreme weather, threaten island nations and low-lying coastal cities, and harm public health, food security, water supplies, infrastructure, and economies.
The report also highlighted increased risks of Amazon rainforest degradation and destabilization of major ice sheets as temperatures continue to rise.
Calls for urgent action
The report called for an accelerated phase-out of fossil fuels, a transition to renewable energy, reductions in methane emissions, protection of land, forests, and oceans, and enhanced adaptation measures to address the impacts of climate change.