Waves crashed over Newhaven Harbor wall in Newhaven, southern England on Feb. 18, as Storm Eunice brought high winds across the country. Powerful storms such as this are becoming more frequent due to human induced climate change.

From food insecurity to our physical and mental health, the impact of climate change is affecting people around the world, and the window is rapidly closing for us to prevent catastrophic and irreversible consequences, according to a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which evaluates climate science for the United Nations.

Written by 270 scientists representing 67 countries, this installment of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report is the second of three parts, with the first report published in August 2021 and the third anticipated in April. The new assessment was released on Monday (Feb. 28) and IPCC representatives outlined at a virtual press event how climate change is hitting billions of people where we live.

“Today’s IPCC report is an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership,” António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, said at the briefing. Evidence in the report from more than 34,000 scientific sources shows how extreme storms, droughts, floods, heatwaves and wildfires — all of which have been increasing in severity and frequency due to climate change — are disrupting food production, interfering with fishing and aquaculture; causing costly damage to cities and infrastructure; and eroding human health.

What’s more, that disruption will only worsen the longer we put off taking necessary steps to limit warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) and help the hardest-hit parts of the world adapt to change that has already happened, Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC, said in a statement.

“This report is a dire warning about the consequences of inaction,” Lee said. “It shows that climate change is a grave and mounting threat to our well-being and a healthy planet.”

Limiting warming to 2.7 F, would require slashing greenhouse gas emissions globally by 40% and achieving net zero emissions by 2050; instead, the world is on track for emissions to rise an estimated 14% over the coming decade, Guterres said at the briefing.

“That spells catastrophe. It will destroy any chance of keeping 1.5 alive,” he said.

According to the report, food and water insecurity are on the rise and are affecting millions of people globally, “especially in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, on small islands and in the Arctic,” caused by cascading impacts from weather extremes caused by climate change, such as heat, drought and floods. On average, global agricultural growth has slowed over the past 50 years as Earth warms, with most of the negative impacts occurring in midlatitude and low latitude regions, the authors wrote.

With extreme heat events increasing around the world, there are more annual deaths from heatwaves and from respiratory complications linked to already-elevated air pollution. Climate-related food-borne and water-borne diseases spread more widely and more rapidly, as do vector-borne illnesses and zoonotic diseases driven by range expansion for the organisms that carry harmful pathogens, according to the report.

Data from North America shows that climate change harms mental health, too. People who have lost their homes, livelihoods or loved ones in floods and wildfires may be affected by post-traumatic stress disorder, while other impacts of climate change, such as food insecurity, can likewise affect mental wellbeing,

However, many natural ecosystems are already nearing collapse due to stresses from global warming, and mounting evidence shows that our adaptation options will decline sharply as natural systems fail. Earth has already warmed to nearly 2.0 F (1.09 C) above pre-industrial average temperatures, and the impact on diverse ecosystems is far more negative and widespread than prior reports anticipated, Parmesan said.

Some of the changes outlined in the new report were unexpected at 2.0 F of warming, such as diseases emerging in North American forests, the first extinctions of species due to climate change, and mass mortality events in trees and mammals due to heatwaves and drought. With increased insect pest outbreaks, more tree deaths and wildfires, and the loss of permafrost and the drying of peatlands, Earth’s biosphere is becoming less capable of absorbing greenhouse gases that are emitted by humans. Regions that were once reliable carbon sinks — absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) — such as old-growth Amazon rainforests and permafrost expanses in undisturbed areas North America and Siberia, are in some areas transforming to CO2 factories that produce more carbon than they absorb, according to the report.

https://www.livescience.com/ipcc-climate-report-we-are-not-ready?utm_source=notification

True

Maybe someone should remind Poo tin.

They don’t just use the Royal We there.

The world’s climate scientists and governments have declared climate change is now a threat to human wellbeing and warned we are about to miss the window to “secure a liveable and sustainable future for all”.

roughbarked said:

The world’s climate scientists and governments have declared climate change is now a threat to human wellbeing and warned we are about to miss the window to “secure a liveable and sustainable future for all”.

By national science, technology and environment reporter Michael Slezak

Greenland’s Ice Sheet is melting from the bottom UP
– and is now the largest single contributor to global sea level rise, study warns

Another IPCC report?

After one only last year?

Perhaps this is only a summary, containing nothing new.

mollwollfumble said:

Another IPCC report?

After one only last year?

Perhaps this is only a summary, containing nothing new.

They do several reports each year.

Latest

Ogmog said:

Greenland’s Ice Sheet is melting from the bottom UP
– and is now the largest single contributor to global sea level rise, study warns

So is Antarctica or at least the glaciers.

Latest IPCC report on climate lays out an “atlas of human suffering”

The facts are undeniable. This abdication of leadership is criminal. The world’s biggest polluters are guilty of arson of our only home.
António Guterres

Last year the UN’s top climate scientists released the first in a trio of reports detailing the dangers of unabated global warming, alluding to dire consequences for humanity in the coming decades. The second report is now in and the outlook is only becoming darker, with UN chief António Guterres describing the abdication of leadership on the issue as “criminal.”

These first two reports are installments in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) broader Sixth Assessment Report due to be completed this year. The first looked at the physical science of climate change, with the authors describing it as a reality check and warning of increased natural disasters such as heatwaves and floods, along with other effects on the environment such as the accelerated thawing of Arctic permafrost.

The latest focuses on the impacts, adaptation and vulnerability in the face of climate change with a temperature rise of 1.5°C (2.7°F) above pre-industrial levels. It’s findings show that the world faces unavoidable climate hazards over the next two decades, with the populations and ecosystems least equipped to cope to be the “hardest hit.”

“This report is a dire warning about the consequences of inaction,” said Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC. “It shows that climate change is a grave and mounting threat to our wellbeing and a healthy planet. Our actions today will shape how people adapt and nature responds to increasing climate risks.”

Heightened heatwaves, droughts and floods are already more severe than plants and animals are able to tolerate, driving widespread mortality in a range of species. These types of weather events are already exposing millions to water and food insecurity, with millions of people in Africa, Asia, the Arctic and Central and South America bearing the brunt of these effects.

The window for action is narrowing, the report says, with rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions the obvious and most important course of action. It also, however, points to the potential for nature to help us adapt to climate change, highlighting the need to foster healthy ecosystems in order to ensure the ongoing supply of vital resources. It also means safeguarding soils to allow diverse plants to grow, for example, and bringing nature into cities to soften the effects of urban heating.

“Healthy ecosystems are more resilient to climate change and provide life-critical services such as food and clean water,” said IPCC Working Group II Co-Chair Hans-Otto Pörtner. “By restoring degraded ecosystems and effectively and equitably conserving 30 to 50 per cent of Earth’s land, freshwater and ocean habitats, society can benefit from nature’s capacity to absorb and store carbon, and we can accelerate progress towards sustainable development, but adequate finance and political support are essential.”

In comments accompanying its launch, Guterres described the report as an “atlas of human suffering.” He went on to say, “unchecked carbon pollution is forcing the world’s most vulnerable on a frog march to destruction – now. The facts are undeniable. This abdication of leadership is criminal. The world’s biggest polluters are guilty of arson of our only home. It is essential to meet the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Science tells us that will require the world to cut emissions by 45 percent by 2030 and achieve net zero emissions by 2050.”

The third report, which will focus on the mitigation of climate change, is due for publication in early April 2022.

https://newatlas.com/environment/ipcc-report-climate-atlas-human-suffering/