The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) announced at the COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland the most comprehensive assessment to date – confirming that the harmful impact of humanity on climate is a fact – according to the claims of UN scientists in a study which is the result of long-standing analyses of numerous research findings and work of hundreds of scientists.
As reported by the Guardian, the authors of the climate report ‘ARG Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis’, point out that a two meters sea-level rise cannot be excluded until the end of the century. They warned that in the next two decades the temperature will rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. That would breach the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and bring about widespread devastation and extreme weather. However, hope exists that a significant reduction of greenhouse emissions could stabilize the rise of temperature.
“This report sounds a red alarm for humanity. If we unite forces now, we can prevent the climate catastrophe. However, as the report clearly implies there is no time for delays, or is there a place for excuses. I’m counting on the heads of government and all interested parties to ensure the success of COP26”, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.
One of the authors of the report, Ed Hawkins underlined that scientists could not be clearer – human activity has warmed up the atmosphere, oceans, and land. “That is a fact and we cannot be more certain of it. It is unmistakable and undeniable that people are warming up the planet”, Hawkins, professor at the Reading University in the UK, pointed out.
The report states that the period from 1970 had the highest registered rise in temperature than in any other period in a 50-year span in the course of the last two thousand years. Warming already has an impact on numerous weather extremes throughout the planet. Heatwaves in Greece and North America as well as floods in Germany and China were given as examples. The global surface temperature in the decade from 2011 to 2020 was 1.09 degrees Celsius higher than in the decades between 1850 and 1900, and the last five years have been the warmest since the beginnings of recordings, 151 years ago. The recent sea-level rise tripled in comparison with the period from 1901 to 1971.
Scientists also believe that human activity is the main cause of the melting of ice on the Arctic and warn that the Arctic could lose its ice at least once in the period from September to 2050. They also claim that the mountain and polar icebergs will continue to melt in the next decades and centuries. The oceans will be increasingly warmer and more acid and frequent extreme tidal events and floods could appear. As far as the rise of the sea level is concerned, scientists emphasized that it could include the possibility of rising by approximately two meters by the end of this century or by five meters by 2150. Although such rises are not probable, they would threaten millions of people in the coastal areas. They also added that fires would become more frequent.
According to the Paris Agreement, signed by almost all world countries, the goal is to prevent the rise of global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius in this century with the intention of maintaining the temperature rise below 1.5 degrees. Both limits will be surpassed in this century if a considerable reduction of greenhouse gases does not take place. Scientists believe that a rise of 1.5 degrees will be reached by 2040 or even earlier if emissions are not reduced.
Scientists are hopeful that the warming could be stopped or temperature rises reversed even reversed if emissions were reduced by half to 2030 and brought down to net zero by the mid-century.
