IPCC report 2021: Key takeaways
On 9 August 2021, the U.N. climate panel released its most comprehensive assessment of climate change yet. The contents and conclusions of the report have been covered in global media like no other has been previously and World leaders are making bold statements in response.
Does this mean the world is finally feeling the same sense of urgency that climate scientists and activists have for over a decade? We hope so.
Here are some of the main points from the report. Should you wish to read the full version, you can find it here
1/ HUMANS ARE TO BLAME
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) used its strongest terms yet to assert that humans are causing climate change, with the first line of its report summary reading: "It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land."
2/ TEMPERATURES WILL KEEP RISING
The report describes possible futures depending on how dramatically the world cuts emissions. But even the severest of cuts are unlikely to prevent global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures. Without immediate steep emissions cuts, though, average temperatures could cruise past 2C by the end of the century.
3/ WEATHER IS GETTING EXTREME- Once considered rare or unprecedented, extreme weather events such as rainfall, heatwaves and cyclones are becoming more common.
Severe heat waves that happened only once every 50 years are now happening roughly once a decade. Tropical cyclones are getting stronger. Most land areas are seeing more rain or snow fall in a year. Severe droughts are happening 1.7 times as often. And fire seasons are getting longer and more intense. This has been directly linked to Climate Change.
4/ ARCTIC SUMMERS COULD SOON BE FREE OF ICE- Summertime sea ice atop the Arctic Ocean will vanish entirely at least once by 2050, under the IPCC's most optimistic scenario. The region is the fastest-warming area of the globe - warming at least twice as fast as the global average.
While Arctic sea ice levels vary throughout the year, the average lows during summer have been decreasing since the 1970s and are now at their lowest levels in a thousand years. This melting creates a feedback loop, with reflective ice giving way to darker water that absorbs solar radiation, causing even more warming.
5/ SEAS WILL RISE NO MATTER WHAT- Sea levels are sure to keep rising for hundreds or thousands of years. Even if global warming were halted at 1.5C, the average sea level would still rise about 2 to 3 meters (6 to 10 feet), and maybe more.
Sea level rise has picked up speed, as polar ice sheets melt and warming ocean water expands. Already, associated flooding has nearly doubled in many coastal areas since the 1960s, with once-in-a-century coastal surges set to occur once a year by 2100..
6/ WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME- Meeting the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5C requires sticking to a "carbon budget," a term describing how much additional carbon can be pumped into the atmosphere before that goal is likely out of reach.
The world is now on track to use up that budget in about a decade.