Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comPeople and other animals are already dying in heatwaves, storms and other disasters fuelled by global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns. Hundreds of plant and animal species have disappeared from local areas, both on land and at sea.
The report calls for a wholesale revision in how humanity lives alongside nature. Just tweaking our social and economic systems "is not going to get us to a climate resilient future", said IPCC report co-author Ed Carr, a geographer and anthropologist at Clark University in Massachusetts. Instead we need "transformational changes... everything from our food to our energy to transportation, but also our politics and our society".
Hard limits increase with each increment of warming, but see a big jump at warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The planet, having already warmed 1.1C, is expected to hit that threshold within two decades. Currently, we're far from that goal. Less than 15% of the world's land, 21% of its freshwater and just 8% of oceans are under some form of protection, often with "insufficient stewardship", the report says.Aside from the public health risks from heatwaves and other weather extremes, there is also a rising risk of disease spread through spoiled food, tainted water, or pathogen-carrying insects such as mosquitoes.
"Any further delay... will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all," the IPCC concludes.