Here ’s What Humanity Must Do Immediately to Prevent Catastrophic Climate Change, According to the New U.N. Report

A landmark United Nations report on Monday warned that sufficiently limiting man-made global warming will “require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” in order to avoid dramatic global consequences, including rising sea levels, dying coral reefs and human casualties due to extreme heat. The special report — published Monday by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — assessed what it will take to limit global temperature increase to no more than 2.7º F (1.5º C) above preindustrial levels, in accordance with the 2015 Paris Agreement. Scientists consider that temperature to be a tipping point at which many severe effects of global warming will be realized. “Examples of actions include shifting to low- or zero-emission power generation, such as renewables; changing food systems, such as diet changes away from land-intensive animal products; electrifying transport and developing ‘green infrastructure’, such as building green roofs, or improving energy efficiency by smart urban planning, which will change the layout of many cities,” the report said. The report called climate change “an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet,” and warned that delayed action would make it impossible to limit warming to 2.7º F. “While the pace of change that would be required to limit warming to [2.7º F] can be f...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized climate change onetime Source Type: news