~ by Brian Roewe, EarthBeat for National Catholic Reporter
Many of the technologies and tactics to avert the worst impacts of climate change exist today. While still a major challenge, what’s missing mostly is the political and financial will to wield them at full force. So says the latest major report from the world’s foremost scientific body on climate change. The report, focusing on mitigation efforts to limit rising temperatures, and with it the fallout from increasing heat was issued on Monday, April 4, by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The report reiterated that immediate, rapid and massive societal shifts this decade are required to meet the world’s goal under the Paris Agreement to limit average global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius – a threshold that climate scientists say will expose millions of people to increasing droughts, heatwaves and extreme storms, and with it, result in greater rates of poverty, migration and health issues, all consequences expected to harm vulnerable communities the most.
The nearly 3,000-page IPCC report [5], compiled by 278 authors from 65 countries, is the third issued by the international scientific group in the past nine months as part of the sixth assessment.
“Its message is crystal clear: we need climate action now in the form of deep and urgent emissions reductions and well before 2030, to stay below 1.5 C, said CIDSE, a network of Catholic international justice organizations, in a statement. “As Catholic Development agencies we are inspired by Pope Francis to call for urgent action on the climate emergency.”
In a joint statement, U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa, Alok Sharma and Sameh Shoukry, the heads of the COP 26 and upcoming COP 27 UN climate conferences respectively, said the latest IPCC report “makes it clearer than ever that the window of opportunity to achieve the [1.5 C goal] is rapidly closing.”
“Despite the urgency of our task, there is hope. The window for action has not yet closed…. There is also clear evidence that – with timely and at scale cuts to emissions – countries can pursue a mitigation pathway consistent with limiting global warming” to 1.5 C they said.
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