New Delhi: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released its strongest report ever warning of inevitable human suffering and threat of species extinction.
It warns increased sea and river flooding, a steep dip in fresh water availability and high mortality due to diarrheal diseases in Asia. And you can blame it all on global warming.
The UN panel in its just released synthesis report urges governments to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions in the face of mounting threat of heat waves, melting glaciers and rising sea levels.
“Industrialised nations need to continue to take the lead in climate change abatement but at the same time we cannot ignore the reality that if developing countries fail to join the effort there can be no viable solution,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.
The report says that if global temperatures exceed 1.5 to 2.5 degrees since pre-industrial levels, 20 to 30 per cent of the world's species face the risk of extinction.
“Slowing and reversing these threats is the defining challenge of our age, the world looks to our climate brain trust to educate, inform and guide us,” Ban Ki-moon said.
The most sobering fact about the report is it says the impact of global warming is already irreversible. Adverse climatic changes will continue for centuries even if we managed to stabilise green house gas emissions right now.
The report comes just two weeks before member nations meet in Bali to discuss future action on climate change.
Comments
0 comment