UN ‘survival guide for humanity’ report is stark climate warning – and ‘message of hope’

Future generations will look back on the hottest years of the 2020s as relatively cool, even if planet-warming fossil fuel emissions drop quickly

‘We have know-how, tools, finances, everything needed to overcome climate problems … what’s lacking is strong political will to resolve this issue’

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Displaced families, who had to flee their flood-hit homes, get relief aid in Pakistan in September. Photo: AP

Published: 7:02pm, 20 Mar 2023Updated: 10:19pm, 20 Mar 2023

Devastating climate impacts are hitting faster than expected as the world teeters on reaching the 1.5 degree Celsius warming limit in a little over a decade, the UN said on Monday.

Temperatures seen in recent years have stoked destructive storms and flooding, crop-wilting heatwaves and deadly droughts.

But generations to come will look back on the hottest years of the 2020s as relatively cool, even if planet-warming fossil fuel emissions drop quickly, the UN’s climate advisory panel said in a key report.

The 36-page “summary for policymakers” – a synthesis of six major reports since 2018 from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – is a brutal reminder that while humanity has the tools to prevent climate catastrophe, it is still not putting them to use.

The world is currently set to reach 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, considered a safer limit to warming, in the early 2030s, which will ratchet up the severity of impacts in the near future.

But it is not too late to turn things around, the head of the IPCC told AFP, describing the report as a “message of hope”.