According to a report released by a United Nation Panel on Sunday, “Pollution and climate change due to human influence is ‘clear’, and the observed effects are ‘unprecedented.’”
The 116-page report prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the 5th since 1990. The environmental scientists arrived at new conclusions by synthesizing the findings of the previous four reports. The last report was released in 2007.
The report concludes, “Economic and population growth have contributed to greenhouse emissions, which are ‘higher than ever,’ and caused the earth to warm.”
“The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, and sea level has risen,” the report said, adding that this has caused extreme weather all over the world. “It is very likely that heat waves will occur more often and last longer, and that extreme precipitation events will become more intense and frequent in many regions.” The risks that these extreme weather conditions present affect a wide range of people but are most devastating to disadvantaged populations, the report said.
Moreover, the report has recommended to allocate finances to encourage people and governments to come up with new ideas to tackle climate change. Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, the vice chairman of IPCC wrote on Twitter that ‘ordinary people’ can make choices that reduce climate change, ‘but lawmakers have liability to facilitate.’
“Global Warming by the end of the 21st century, even with adaptation will lead to high to very high risk of severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts globally,” the report warned.
John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State said Sunday in response to the report, “We can’t prevent such a massive disaster if we don’t notice this kind of hard science. The longer we are stuck in a debate over ideology and politics, the more the costs of inaction grow and grow.”
