After the UN climate panel, IPCC released its report on Monday morning, and the first reactions poured in. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and climate activist Greta Thunberg, among others, have already expressed their concern and called for action.
Most are already focusing on Glasgow, where a ‘crucial’ climate summit will occur this autumn.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the climate working group of the United Nations, is making no bones about it. It’s ‘code red for humanity’. If greenhouse gas emissions fall sharply in the coming decades, global warming is limited to two degrees.
The report says a 1.5-degree increase by 2030 is irreversible. The consequences – including rising sea levels, melting ice caps, heavy rainfall, and extreme drought – will manifest quickly. In addition, the report also unambiguously links this climatic trend to human activity.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the report a “wake-up call for the world”. “Stop using coal and switch to clean energy sources. Protect nature,” he pleaded in a statement. According to him, the next decade will be crucial for the future of the planet. This autumn, the United Kingdom will welcome the significant climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. Johnson hopes that all countries will decide to act before the summit.
“This report makes it clear that we are now at the stage where self-preservation is either a collective process or a failed process.” The NGO Oxfam announced this in an initial response. “It is yet another proof that climate change is already happening and that global warming is one of the most damaging causes of increasing hunger, migration, poverty and inequality around the world.”
Over the past 10 years, more people have been displaced from their homes by disasters related to extreme weather events than for any other reason, according to Oxfam. The organization points to the responsibility of rich countries to cut their emissions first and then repay their climate debt to developing countries by increasing financing. In this way, they can help them adapt to the effects of climate change. According to Oxfam, the climate summit in Glasgow will be an ‘all or nothing story.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg says she is “not really surprised by the UN climate report”. “It confirms what we already know from thousands of previous studies and reports: that we are in an emergency situation. It’s a solid but tentative summary of the currently available knowledge,” she wrote on her social media. “It is up to us to be bold and make decisions based on the scientific evidence provided in the reports.”