Decoding the latest IPCC report

Climate change is causing environmental and ecological problems across the world. However, are these problems limited to the ecological paradigm, or is there more to it? The harmful effects of climate change are consistently surging because of the high escalation of use of natural resources, the emittance of greenhouse gases, poor waste management, use of plastics, to name a few.

The UN body for climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), periodically releases its report on the raging crisis of climate change. IPCC has recently released its new report. It is worrisome how the magnitude of climate change is increasing. Let’s dig deep!

Findings of the recent IPCC report

• Irreversible changes: The only hope we have towards a healthy future is to work towards deescalating the harmful human activities to reduce the magnitude of climate change. However, the IPCC report has showcased that some of the effects of climate change are now “irreversible”. Although, if immediate steps are taken now, we can escape the worst.
• Excessive adaption: Because of extreme weather conditions caused due to climate change, we have been trying to adapt to the “new environment”. However, the report tells us that nature and humans are being pushed beyond limits to adapt to changing environments.

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• Highly vulnerable population: Around 40% of the world population is “highly vulnerable” to climate change. So much so, four in ten people live in highly vulnerable areas. The report has disclosed that people's workplaces and lives may cease to exist. Between 2010 and 2020, 15 times more people died due to floods and droughts in highly vulnerable areas like Africa, South Asia, etc.
• Loss of species: Because of drastically changing weather conditions, the species that have called the planet their home for centuries may go extinct if the rate of climate change increases or remains the same.
• Coastal deterioration: The coral reefs are dying out because of rising temperatures. The continued rise in sea level is pushing coastal settlements. According to the report, billions of people would be at risk in the next few decades because of coastal specific climate change.

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The decade of action

According to the UN authorities, this is the “decade of action”. Currently, the global temperature is around 1.1C, heading towards 1.5C. Thus, stringent measures are needed to be taken globally if the world community wants to stop this “atlas of human suffering”, as mentioned by the UN secretary-general.

Bottom line

Countries are indeed taking steps like recently 174 nations bound a treaty to end plastic pollution by 2024. Such efforts will only be successful if efficient ground-level action is taken. Thus, it is to be seen how governments act against climate change in this decade.