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Graphic shows change in global surface temperature since 1880.
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ENVIRONMENT

No end to rising temperatures – report

By Duncan Mil

August 9, 2021 - The world’s top climate scientists warn that the planet will warm by 1.5° Celsius within 20 years without “immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions” in greenhouse gas pollution.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change analysis is the sixth such report and the first since 2013. Its summary will form a basis for negotiations at the global summit in the United Kingdom in November.

The IPCC finds that global warming has risen 0.95°C to 1.2°C since the late 1800s. The surface temperature has surged faster since 1970 than in any other 50-year period over at least the past 2,000 years.

Under a very low emissions scenario, the temperature will rise by 1.5°C by 2040 and 1.6°C by 2060. Global warming under a very high emissions scenario would see carbon emissions triple, and warming could reach 1.9°C by 2040, 3.0°C by 2060 and 5.7°C by 2100.

Under the very low emissions scenario, sea levels would rise by about 0.35m by 2050 and 0.5m by 2100, compared with the 1900 levels. Under the very high emissions scenario, sea levels could increase by about 1m by 2100.

The publication is “a code red for humanity,” said Antonio Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations. “This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels before they destroy our planet.”

Sources
PUBLISHED: 13/08/2021; STORY: Graphic News; PICTURES: Getty Images
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