U.N. panel calls for rapid action against climate change to secure a liveable future 

Failure to prevent the earth from heating 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels will result in irreversible adverse impacts on certain ecosystems with low resilience, says the IPCC in a report

Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health and there is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a report on March 20, 2023.

This is the final report of the sixth assessment cycle of the UN panel. Through its multiple assessment cycles beginning 1990, the IPCC has collated and analysed research by scientists on global warming, the role humans have had in exacerbating it, the long-term climate impact from current and future emissions and what people can do about it.

The IPCC does not itself undertake scientific assessments but only evaluates the state of scientific evidence on various aspects of climate change.

The current report does not weigh in on new scientific evidence but synthesises findings from three working groups: Working Group I (which evaluated the physical science basis of climate change), Working Group II (impacts, adaptation and vulnerability) and Working Group III (mitigation, or reducing future greenhouse gas emissions).

It also integrates evidence from three special reports during the sixth assessment cycle: Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (October 2018), Special Report on Climate Change and Land (August 2019), and Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (September 2019).

Future reports of the IPCC aren’t expected until 2030 and that’s already marked out as a boundary point year beyond which – if significant action to cut emissions are not taken –it would be impossible to prevent the earth from heating 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels.

“Overshooting 1.5°C will result in irreversible adverse impacts on certain ecosystems with low resilience, such as polar, mountain, and coastal ecosystems, impacted by ice-sheet, glacier melt, or by accelerating and higher committed sea level rise,” the IPCC said in the report.