UN Report Warns Planet Is 'changing Before Our Eyes' Due To Climate Change
Umer Jamshaid Published October 31, 2021 | 11:40 PM
UNITED NATIONS, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2021 ) :The climate crisis has driven the planet into 'uncharted territory', with far-reaching repercussions for today's and future generations, according to the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a Geneva-based UN agency.
In its annual state of the global climate report launched Sunday as the UN Cop26 summit gets under way, WMO said the Cop26 summit was a 'make-or-break opportunity to put us back on track'.
The last seven years have been the hottest on record � with sea levels rising to new highs and climate-related destructive weather extremes in 2021, it said, adding that 2021 is likely to have been the fifth to seventh hottest year on record. It also sets out the heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and floods that have wreaked havoc across the planet this year and is intended to inform Cop26 negotiations.
The report shows our planet is changing before our eyes, the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres said. From the ocean depths to mountain tops, from melting glaciers to relentless extreme weather events, communities and ecosystems around the globe are being devastated. Cop26 must be a turning point for people and planet.
Released as climate policy negotiators begin their work at COP26, the report says that a temporary cooling La Nia event early in the year, means that 2021 is expected to be only the fifth to seventh warmest year on record. Global sea level rise accelerated since 2013 to a new high, with continued ocean warming and ocean acidification.
The report combines input from multiple United Nations agencies, national meteorological and hydrological services, and scientific experts.
It highlights the destructive impacts on food security and population displacement, crucial ecosystems and in slowing progress towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
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"From the ocean depths to mountain tops, from melting glaciers to relentless extreme weather events, ecosystems and communities around the globe are being devastated. COP26 must be a turning point for people and planet," the UN chief said in his video statement.
For the UN chief, scientists are clear on the facts. Now, he argued, leaders need to be just as clear in their actions.� The door is open. The solutions are there. COP26 must be a turning point. We must act now, with ambition and solidarity, to safeguard our future and save humanity, he added.
The report lists some of the extreme events over the past year.
At the peak of the Greenland ice sheet, for example, it rained, instead of snowing, for the first time.
Canadian glaciers suffered rapid melting. A heatwave in Canada and parts of the USA pushed temperatures to nearly 50�C in a village in British Columbia. Death Valley, in California, reached 54.4�C.
Many parts of the Mediterranean experienced record temperatures, and the heat was often accompanied by devastating fires.
Months-worth of rainfall, fell in the space of hours, in China and parts of Europe, leading to dozens of casualties and billions in economic losses. A second successive year of drought in sub-tropical South America, hit agriculture, transport and energy production.
For WMO Secretary-General, Petteri Taalas, all these events show that extreme events are the new norm.� There is mounting scientific evidence that some of these bear the footprint of human-induced climate change, he added.
At the current rate of increase in greenhouse gas concentrations, the world will see a temperature increase by the end of this century far in excess of the Paris Agreement targets of 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
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