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Climate Change:
"A Threat to Human Well Being and Health of the Planet" (IPCC)
On 28 February 2022, the Intrgovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued the second part of the Sixth Assessment Report on climate change. The last such report was issued in 2021.
The report found "human-induced climate change is causing dangerous and widespread disruption in nature and affecting the lives of billions of people around the world, despite efforts to reduce the risks." Hoesung Lee, chairman of the IPCC, stated "This report is a dire warning about the consequences of inaction. "It shows that climate change is a grave and mounting threat to our wellbeing and a healthy planet."1
The Who and What of the Report
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) was created by the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988.. The IPCC has 195 member countries. Thousands of people from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC. For the assessment reports, IPCC scientists volunteer their time to assess the thousands of scientific papers published each year to provide a comprehensive summary of what is known about the drivers of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and how adaptation and mitigation can reduce those risks.
Involved in this particular report was the AR6 Working Group, comprised of 270 authors and reearchers.The report also cited over 34,000 references. And a total of 62,418 expert and government reviewed comments.2
Findings
Findings of the report can be organized into five catgories:
I. The current state of the climate
* The world faces unavoidable multiple climate hazards over the next two decades with global warming of 1.5°C (2.7°F).
* Even temporarily exceeding this warming level will result in additional severe impacts, some of which will be irreversible.
* Risks for society will increase, including to infrastructure and low-lying coastal settlements.
B. Urgent action required to deal with increasing risks
* Increased heatwaves, droughts and floods are already exceeding plants’ and animals’ tolerance thresholds, driving mass mortalities in species such as trees and corals. These weather extremes are occurring simultaneously, causing cascading impacts that are increasingly difficult to manage. They have exposed millions of people to acute food and water insecurity, especially in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, on Small Islands and in the Arctic.
* To avoid mounting loss of life, biodiversity and infrastructure, ambitious, accelerated action is required to adapt to climate change, at the same time as making rapid, deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. So far, progress on adaptation is uneven and there are increasing gaps between action taken and what is needed to deal with the increasing risks, the new report finds. These gaps are largest among lower-income populations.
III. Safeguarding and strengthening nature is key to securing a liveable future
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