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<ul class="summary-list"><li>The world can turn around the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-alter-human-life-un-ipcc-report-2022-2">climate crisis</a> this decade, hundreds of scientists concluded in a major UN report.</li><li>To avert the worst <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-crisis-endangers-women-girls-pregnant-people-2022-3">climate</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mass-animal-extinctions-climate-change-un-ipcc-report-2022-3">catastrophes</a>, the world has three years to start cutting emissions.</li></ul><p>Governments and corporations across the planet have the tools to turn around the climate crisis in the next decade, hundreds of scientists concluded in a major climate report on Monday.</p><p>Humans are filling the atmosphere with more carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases than ever before. But there's still time to limit the planet's warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial standard, according to the report. That temperature cap would avert the most catastrophic <keyword id="11896311" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate-change" source="Orion">climate change</keyword>, including further <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mass-animal-extinctions-climate-change-un-ipcc-report-2022-3">mass animal and plant extinctions</a>, significant increases in the frequency and severity of heat waves and droughts, and tipping points that could lock in even greater levels of warming.</p><p>To avoid heating the planet past that 1.5-degree goalpost, global emissions of heat-trapping gases must peak by 2025, drop to half their current level by 2030, and drop to zero by 2050.</p><div type="image" title="rising seas surround little girl on bench" height="1666" width="2222" msid="90652614" hostid="261"></div><p>The new 3,000-page report, from the <keyword id="11896449" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="united-nations" source="Orion">United Nations</keyword>' <keyword id="11911245" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change" source="Orion">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</keyword> (<keyword id="6941656" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ipcc" source="Orion">IPCC</keyword>), lays out a playbook to meet that ambitious timeline. It recommends transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources like solar and wind, outfitting cities with electrified transportation systems and energy-efficient buildings, and deploying technologies that suck carbon out of the atmosphere.</p><p>"We clearly have the tools to tackle the climate crisis. That's what the report shows. But they need to be deployed much more rapidly, on a larger scale, to keep 1.5 within reach," Stephanie Roe, a lead author on the report and a climate scientist at the World Wildlife Fund, told Insider.</p><div type="image" title="wind turbines and church silhouetted against sunset" height="1667" width="2500" msid="90652615" hostid="261"></div><p>The problem is mustering the political will and financial resources to do it. The report identified just 18 countries that have consistently reduced their emissions over the last decade. Worldwide, financial investment in mitigation efforts would need to increase three- to six-fold in order to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, the report found.</p><p>Existing fossil-fuel projects, like coal plants and oil wells, are enough on their own to lock in warming that exceeds 1.5 degrees, the report found.</p><p>"Some government and business leaders are saying one thing, but doing another. Simply put, they're lying and the results will be catastrophic," António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said in a press briefing on Monday.</p><p>"Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals, but the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels," he added.</p><h2>The last IPCC assessment before the crucial 2025 deadline</h2><div type="image" title="pair of hands cupped holding crude oil" height="1755" width="2341" msid="90652616" hostid="261"></div><p>The new report is the third installment of the IPCC's sixth assessment. The first portion, released last year, focused on physical changes to the planet. In February, the second portion assessed how those changes will impact humans and ecosystems.</p><p>The IPCC conducts the three-part assessment process roughly every six or seven years. This assessment was delayed several months by the COVID-19 pandemic. The last time the IPCC published a solutions-oriented report was in 2014, as part of its fifth assessment.</p><p>This time around, the solutions recommended in the report may be more doable, despite the rapidly approaching 2025 deadline for turning around global emissions. The cost of solar and wind energy has plummeted since the IPCC's fifth assessment, and new innovations have made renewable-energy and energy-efficiency technologies work better on a larger scale.</p><p>"I think we're actually pretty fortunate to be alive during this brief time in history, where we sort of understand the stakes, but have time to do something about it," John Bistline, a contributing author to the energy-systems chapter of the report, told Insider.</p><p>This will be the last IPCC assessment before the 2025 milestone. By the time the UN convenes scientists to make another such assessment, it will likely be too late to limit warming to 1.5 degrees.</p>

The world can turn around the climate crisis this decade, UN report confirms, but governments need to step up

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Half of plant and animal species could be threatened if global temperatures rise 4 degrees Celsius.</li><li>A new climate report warns of mass <keyword id="13293387" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="extinctions" source="Orion">extinctions</keyword> of <keyword id="11897851" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="animals" source="Orion">animals</keyword>, including <keyword id="13132073" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="polar-bears" source="Orion">polar bears</keyword> and penguins.</li></ul><p>Hundreds of species have been wiped out by extreme heat or warming oceans, but few global animal extinctions have been directly linked to <keyword id="11896311" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate-change" source="Orion">climate change</keyword>.</p><p>In 2009, a combination of sea-level rise and storm surge in the Great Barrier Reef led to the disappearance of the Bramble Cay mosaic-tailed rat. Seven years later, the species became <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/climate-change-claims-its-first-mammal-extinction/">the first mammal to go extinct due to human-induced climate change</a>.</p><p>The world can expect many more climate-related extinctions in coming decades if global temperatures continue to rise. That's according to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-alter-human-life-un-ipcc-report-2022-2">a report</a> released Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a <keyword id="11893452" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="un" source="Orion">UN</keyword> body that summarizes years of research on the climate crisis.</p><p>If global temperatures reach 4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — a scenario that assumes very high levels of greenhouse gas emissions — half of our plant and animal species could be threatened, according to the report. At that level of warming, the world could see mass mortalities and extinctions that permanently alter rainforests, kelp forests, and tropical coral reefs.</p><p>Even if global temperatures reach 1.5 degrees Celsius, the report found, up to 14% of land species could face high risk of extinction. Human-caused emissions have already led the planet to warm by 1.1 degrees Celsius in the last 170 years, last year's portion of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/still-time-to-address-climate-change-ipcc-scientists-report-2021-8">IPCC report</a> found.</p><p>Under 2 degrees of warming, up 18% of land species could be at high risk of extinction. That risk rises to up to 29% under 3 degrees of warming, up to 39% at 4 degrees, and up to 48% at 5 degrees.</p><div type="image" title="endangered frog" height="1600" width="2400" msid="89951597" hostid="261"></div><p>Invertebrate species face one of the highest risks of extinction from mid-levels of warming (3.2 degrees Celsius), according to the report. Under this scenario, 15% of invertebrates — including 24% of salamanders and 11% of amphibians — could go extinct.</p><p>No matter what happens to global temperatures, the report said, the extinction of species is an irreversible impact of climate change.</p><h2>Arctic penguins, seals, and polar bears are at risk of extinction</h2><div type="image" title="polar bear arctic" height="1728" width="2432" msid="89951600" hostid="261"></div><p>Species in cold areas, including high mountains or polar regions, face a particularly high extinction risk.</p><p>Arctic animals such as penguins, seals, and polar bears would be seriously threatened by 2 degrees of warming or less, according to the report. The animals have evolved to live on sea ice, which is rapidly retreating due to rising temperatures. The report predicts that sea ice will completely disappear in summertime within the next century.</p><p>That means some Arctic animals could go extinct in coming decades, unless they're moved to new locations.</p><p>But relocating animals to foreign habitats is tricky: For instance, moving polar bears to Antarctica could lead them to prey on local penguin populations there. In some cases, animal species may need to be moved to zoos to keep them from dying out.</p><p>Tropical areas face their own threats, such as heatwaves destroying coral reefs and mangroves. Up to 90% of tropical coral reefs could be lost by mid-century under 1.5 degrees of warming, the report found, while the reefs could go entirely extinct under 2 degrees of warming.</p><h2>Animal extinctions could threaten human health, too</h2><div type="image" title="fish market Seychelles" height="3360" width="5040" msid="89951602" hostid="261"></div><p>In some cases, the extinction of animal species can topple entire ecosystems.</p><p>Ecosystems <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/biodiversity/intro/index_en.htm">depend on biodiversity</a> — a variety of plants, animals, and other organisms — to protect them from pollution, <keyword id="12019615" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="extreme-weather" source="Orion">extreme weather</keyword>, and temperature shifts. But if one species dies out, it makes it harder for others to survive. Loss of biodiversity can, in turn, lead to crop failure and water scarcity, according to the report.</p><p>Just a half-degree of additional warming could mean the difference between whether a species stays alive or not.</p><p>The <keyword id="6941656" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ipcc" source="Orion">IPCC</keyword> authors found that the extinction risk for local species in biodiversity hotspots could double between 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees of warming, and increase at least 10-fold from 1.5 degrees to 3 degrees.</p><p>The death of animal species has consequences for humans, too.</p><p>More than 400 million people in Africa and Asia depend on fisheries for protein. Even if warming doesn't exceed 1.6 degrees, fisheries in Africa's tropical regions could lose up to 41% of their yield by the end of the century due to the extinction of local marine fish.</p><p>Commonly consumed fish like sardines and herring could also face extinction as oceans warm. </p><p>"This matters for human well-being as well," David Dodman, a lead author of the report and director of human settlements at the International Institute for Environment and Development, told Insider.</p><p>"So many people around the world still rely on very close interactions with natural ecosystems to provide them with food and to provide them with livelihoods."</p>

UN report warns of climate-related mass extinctions, including the disappearance of penguins and polar bears

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Up to 3.6 billion people are highly vulnerable to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-disaster-death-toll-688-people-cost-145-billion-2021-2022-1">climate change</a>, a new UN report says.</li><li>Warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius or more could drastically alter our physical health, the places we live, and the survival of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-animals-added-to-extinction-list-birds-fish-mollusks-2021-10">animal species</a>.</li></ul><p>Rising global temperatures bring dire threats, such as <keyword id="48088" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="floods" source="Orion">floods</keyword>, heat-related injuries, water scarcity, and hunger, making up to 3.6 billion people — nearly half of the world's population — highly vulnerable to <keyword id="11896311" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate-change" source="Orion">climate change</keyword>.</p><p>That's according to a major report, released Monday, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a UN body that recruits hundreds of scientists from across the globe to summarize years of research on the climate crisis. </p><p>"We are in an emergency headed for a disaster," Inger Andersen, executive director of the <keyword id="11896449" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="united-nations" source="Orion">United Nations</keyword> Environment Program, said at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpK7eeYRhjQ">a Monday press conference</a>.</p><p>"Climate change isn't lurking around the corner ready to pounce," she said, adding, "It's already upon us, raining down blows on billions of people."</p><p>Human-caused emissions have already led the planet to warm by 1.1 degrees Celsius in the last 170 years. The report drills down on how 1.5 degrees of warming or more could drastically alter our physical health, food and water supply, the availability of safe places to live, and the survival of animal species.</p><div type="image" title="heat wave" height="2471" width="3600" msid="89908871" hostid="261"></div><h2>Here are some of the report's main takeaways:</h2><ul><li>By 2050, more than 1 billion people in low-lying coastal cities and small islands will be at risk of climate hazards from sea-level rise.</li><li>Under 1.5 degrees of <keyword id="6366055" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="global-warming" source="Orion">global warming</keyword>, children ages 10 and younger as of 2020 could experience a nearly four-fold increase in extreme weather events by 2100. </li><li>The percentage of people exposed to deadly heat stress (i.e., heat stroke) could increase from 30% today to 76% by the end of the century.</li><li>Under 2 degrees of global warming, between 800 million and 3 billion people could experience chronic water scarcity due to droughts. That figure could climb to 4 billion people if global temperatures rise 4 degrees.</li><li>Eight million to 80 million people will suffer from hunger by 2050. Under a high-warming scenario, up to 183 million additional people in low-income countries could become undernourished due to climate change.</li><li>Under 2 degrees of warming, up to 18% of all land species will be at high risk of going extinct by 2100. Under 4 degrees of warming, half of our plant and animal species could be threatened.</li></ul><p>Monday's release is the second portion of the <keyword id="6941656" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ipcc" source="Orion">IPCC</keyword>'s sixth assessment. The first portion, released last year, focused on physical changes to the planet. The new report assesses how those changes will impact humans and ecosystems.</p><p>While some climate outcomes are preventable, others set in stone. Last year's portion of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/still-time-to-address-climate-change-ipcc-scientists-report-2021-8">IPCC report</a> found that glaciers will continue melting and seas will continue to rise for hundreds or thousands of years.</p><p>"The world we live in today is not going to be the world we live in five years, 10 years, or even 20 years from now," Debra Roberts, the co-chair of the IPCC report, said at the press conference. "We have to be much more vigilant about our actions."</p><h2>How can the world adapt?</h2><div type="image" title="farmer walks through field of dried brown soybean plants" height="1667" width="2500" msid="89908872" hostid="261"></div><p>Governments and industries have taken some measures to adapt to their new climates and prepare for impacts to come. The agricultural sector, for example, is broadly improving irrigation practices to prepare for water scarcity across the globe. And in some regions like West Africa, farmers are planting more drought-tolerant crops.</p><p>But the IPCC report concludes that these adaptations are not enough to protect ecosystems and humans from the onslaught of extreme weather, rising oceans, and food and water shortages.</p><p>The report recommends restoring wetlands along flood plains to absorb floodwaters, and planting trees along rivers to create shade and prevent them from drying up. Farmers may also consider diversifying their crops and livestock so they aren't dependent on a single food source. Adding green space to rooftops and walls in cities can help cool temperatures and reduce stormwater runoff. Parks and ponds can help mitigate <keyword id="12137269" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="extreme-heat" source="Orion">extreme heat</keyword> in urban areas. And a diverse array of renewable-energy sources, like wind, solar, and hydroelectric power, can support rural populations in the face of extreme weather.</p><p>"The tricky thing is that there is no silver bullet. There is no one action that's going to solve everything," David Dodman, a lead author of the report and director of human settlements at the International Institute for Environment and Development, told Insider.</p><div type="image" title="seven adults wade through tropical storm harvey floodwaters carrying children and bags" height="1578" width="2400" msid="89908873" hostid="261"></div><p>Since every half-degree of global temperature rise carries major consequences, governments and industries can significantly reduce future human suffering and ecosystem collapse by cutting their greenhouse-gas emissions now.</p><p>But that also means there's little time to waste.</p><p>"The world is currently underprepared for the coming climate change impacts, particularly beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius," the IPCC authors wrote, adding, "At higher levels of warming, the effectiveness of most land- and water-based adaptation options starts declining, and the extent of residual risks increases, as do the chances of future unintended consequences."</p><h2>Rising temperatures could displace millions of people</h2><div type="image" title="woman in headscarf squats to collect grain" height="1875" width="2500" msid="89908874" hostid="261"></div><p>If global temperatures exceed 2 degrees of warming, low-lying coastal cities and certain mountain areas or polar regions may have difficulty supporting human life.</p><p>Changes in temperature, sea level, and food or water supply are already forcing people to relocate on every continent.<strong> </strong></p><p>For example, more people move from Mexico's rural areas into cities during droughts. Some communities in Alaska are making relocation plans as flooding encroaches on their homes. Droughts are also driving migration in sub-Saharan Africa, parts of South Asia, and South America, according to the report.<strong> </strong></p><p>The IPCC authors expect more Arctic communities, particularly indigenous peoples, to migrate as ice melt interferes with their ability to live and hunt.</p><div type="image" title="nenets indigenous woman in winter coat stands with reindeer herd in russian tundra" height="1681" width="2241" msid="89908875" hostid="261"></div><p>The report also predicts that hundreds of millions of people will be at risk of climate-related displacement by the second half of the 21st century.<strong> </strong>Eventually, people may pay a premium to live in climate-safe locations.</p><p>"There's concern over climate gentrification, where safer locations that formerly were home to lower-income groups in cities become more desirable, because of their perceived safety from climate risks and therefore the regional inhabitants begin to be priced out," Dodman said, adding, "I think that's a legitimate concern for the future."</p>

Unlivable cities, refugees, extinct animals: UN climate report warns of drastic changes in coming decades

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Some of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-crisis-heat-dome-condo-collapse-nyc-floods-infrastructure-2021-7">climate crisis</a>' effects on <keyword id="6373773" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="oceans">oceans</keyword> and ice will last millennia, a new report says.</li><li>That report, the Intergovernmental Panel on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-disasters-hottest-year-record-earth-2020-2021-1">Climate Change</a>'s sixth assessment, was released Monday.</li><li>It found <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/india-chamoli-disaster-mystery-solved-avalanche-glacier-flood-2021-6">glaciers</a> would keep <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-if-all-ice-earth-melted-overnight-2019-10">melting</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/florida-surfside-champlain-condo-collapse-climate-change-resilience-development-underwater-2021-7">seas would rise</a> for hundreds or thousands of years.</li></ul><p>Earth won't be the same again for thousands of years. Human activities have altered our planet's systems so dramatically that seas will continue to rise and <keyword id="6616544" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Glaciers">glaciers</keyword> continue to melt long after the 21st century.</p><p>That's according to a long-awaited report, released Monday, from the <keyword id="60781" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Intergovernmental-Panel-on-Climate-Change">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</keyword> - a UN body that recruits hundreds of scientists from across the globe to summarize years of research on the climate crisis.</p><div type="image" title="black smoke plume above darkened snow" height="1572" width="2096" msid="85174101" hostid="261"></div><p>That aggregated research paints a dismaying portrait of both our planet's long-term future and the short-term impacts of <keyword id="6361617" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate-change">climate change</keyword>, including increasingly <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oregon-bootleg-fire-creating-fire-clouds-pyrocumulonimbus-storms-2021-7">extreme weather</a>. In burning fossil fuels, humans have pumped so much carbon dioxide into Earth's atmosphere that it would continue heating the planet even if the world's emissions dropped to net zero today.</p><p>That warming commits Earth to major upheavals in the coming decades - rising seas, disappearing glaciers, extreme heat, floods, drought, and tropical storms. Some of those changes, the <keyword id="6941656" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="IPCC">IPCC</keyword> report found, will be "irreversible for centuries to millennia."</p><h2>Glaciers will melt and seas will rise for millennia to come</h2><div type="image" title="firefighter in smoke filled forest in siberia" height="3869" width="5158" msid="85174107" hostid="261"></div><p>Already, the Arctic is losing its permafrost, a layer of soil that used to stay frozen year-round. That frozen layer has captured carbon from plants and animals that have died over past centuries - about twice as much carbon as currently exists in the atmosphere.</p><p>As rising temperatures thaw the permafrost, though, that carbon escapes into the atmosphere, where it traps heat and contributes to additional warming. This carbon release may last hundreds of years, according to the IPCC.</p><p>Changes to Earth's oceans, too, "are irreversible on centennial to millennial time scales," according to the report. The oceans have been absorbing about <a href="https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/global-ocean-absorbing-more-carbon">31%</a> of carbon-dioxide emissions, which makes them more acidic. They're also heating up along with the rest of the planet. Warmer water holds less oxygen, a resource that's crucial to marine life.</p><div type="image" title="glacier calving splinters of ice fall into ocean" height="1674" width="2232" msid="85174111" hostid="261"></div><p>Warming will also keep glaciers melting at the poles and on mountaintops for decades, possibly centuries, the report says. If emissions rise further, some limited evidence suggests the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet could accelerate for centuries.</p><p>All that melting ice would contribute to even more sea-level rise. Over the next 2,000 years, oceans could rise as much as 72 feet. The IPCC report says with "high confidence" that sea levels "will remain elevated for thousands of years."</p><h2>Other takeaways from the IPCC report</h2><p>The UN created the IPCC in 1988 to inform policymakers about how the climate is changing. This is its sixth climate assessment.</p><div type="image" title="IPCC climate change" height="1860" width="2480" msid="85174113" hostid="261"></div><p>For these reports, hundreds of scientists from across the globe comb through thousands of scientific papers. They describe how the climate is changing, the consequences of those changes, risks for the future, and what can be done.</p><p>Monday's report is the first part of the IPCC's new assessment, and it comes from a working group that hadn't released new findings since 2013. This portion comes three months before scheduled climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland. The next two parts of the report are expected in early 2022. Governments of 195 countries must approve each one before its release.</p><div type="image" title="Fire department helps man in Oregon amidst heat wave" height="2655" width="3540" msid="85174115" hostid="261"></div><p>Here are other key takeaways from the new IPCC report:</p><ul><li>The global average temperature from 2001 to 2020 was about 1 degree Celsius higher than it was from 1850 to 1900.</li><li>The average global sea level rose by about half a foot (0.2 meters) from 1901 to 2018. The rate of annual sea-level rise nearly tripled during that time.</li><li>In 2019, the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere was higher than at any other time in at least 2 million years. Concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide - more-potent greenhouse gases than CO2 - were higher than at any time in at least 800,000 years.</li><li>Annual average Arctic sea-ice levels from 2001 to 2020 were their lowest since 1850, and the Arctic is likely to have a sea-ice-free September at least once before 2050.</li><li>Major tropical cyclones, heat waves, and heavy precipitation events have increased in frequency around the globe over the past four decades.</li><li>Combinations of extreme events like heavy rainfall and hurricane-caused storm surge, paired with rising sea levels, will continue to make flooding more likely in coming decades.</li><li>The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, an ocean current that carries warm water north and cold water south, is weakening. If the current slows enough, Europe and the US East Coast would be hit by freezing temperatures.</li></ul>

Climate-related changes to Earth's ice and oceans are now 'irreversible for centuries to millennia,' a new report says

<ul class="summary-list"><li>In the Paris climate agreement, world leaders agreed to limit <keyword id="6366055" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="global-warming">global warming</keyword> to 1.5 degrees Celsius.</li><li>But new UN report found that goal may be impossible: By 2040, Earth will warm by at least that much.</li><li>For every half-a-degree of warming, the frequency and intensity of heat waves and <keyword id="46472" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="drought">drought</keyword> increase.</li></ul><p>When world leaders from 195 countries gathered in Paris almost six years ago, they agreed to try to cut greenhouse-gas emissions enough to keep global temperatures from <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/faq/faq-chapter-1/">rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius</a>.</p><p>According to a new climate report, however, Earth's temperature is set to blow past that mark in the next 20 years - under any conceivable scenario of future emissions.</p><p>The findings, released on Monday, come from the sixth climate assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on <keyword id="6361617" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate-change">Climate Change</keyword> (<keyword id="6941656" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="IPCC">IPCC</keyword>) - a United Nations body that recruits hundreds of scientists from across the globe to synthesize years of climate research and modeling.</p><p>The report found that human-driven emissions have already caused the planet to warm by 1.1 degrees in the last 170 years, and that warming trend will continue until over the next two to three decades to some degree, regardless of how much emissions drop.</p><h2>What climate change will look like in the short term</h2><div type="image" title="california drought Lake Mendocino 2021" height="1392" width="2500" msid="85174121" hostid="261"></div><p>Global temperatures have risen faster in the last 50 years than any other 50-year period in the last 2,000 years. That's because humanity emitted about 2.4 trillion tons of carbon dioxide between 1850 and 2019. Every trillion tons causes the world's average temperature to increase roughly 0.45 degrees Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit).</p><p>The IPCC report outlined five potential future scenarios, each of which assumes a different quantity of carbon emissions between now and the year 2100. So the scenarios all result in different levels of warming. </p><p>Even if emissions drop to net zero in the next 30 years - the IPCC authors' best-case scenario - the global temperature will rise at least 1.5 degrees between now and 2040, the report found. In the worst-case scenario, in which emissions double by 2050, temperatures would rise 2.4 degrees above pre-industrial levels between 2041 and 2060. Then that increase would nearly double by 2100.</p><p>If the best-case situation played out, though, temperatures would eventually dip back down, dropping below the 1.5-degree mark by the end of the century.</p><h2>Some changes in ocean heat and sea-level rise are locked in until 2100</h2><div type="image" title="nuuk greenland ice melt" height="1620" width="2156" msid="85174122" hostid="261"></div><p>Even in the best-case scenario, the authors found, the ocean warming observed between 1971 and 2018 will double. Waters will also get more acidic and lose oxygen, which can devastate marine life and alter currents that are critical to seasonal weather patterns in the Northern Hemisphere. These changes will be irreversible for the next hundreds, if not thousands, of years. </p><p>The report shows as well that glaciers will keep melting for decades or even centuries, and the Greenland Ice Sheet will continue losing ice until 2100 (the Antarctic Ice Sheet will most likely do the same). Because this contributes to sea-level rise, it is virtually certain that oceans will continue rising through the end of this century.</p><p>In the best case scenario, the IPCC authors said, oceans will rise by nearly a foot over the next 80 years.</p><div type="image" title="smokestack poland climate change eu" height="640" width="1024" msid="85174123" hostid="261"></div><p>Avoiding 1.5 degrees of warming was the Paris agreement's ideal scenario, though it set 2 degrees as the threshold never to cross. To make sure we stay under that, the new report says, we have about 900 billion tons of carbon left in our budget. In 2019, emissions reached about <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-global-fossil-fuel-emissions-up-zero-point-six-per-cent-in-2019-due-to-china">37 billion tons</a> - so if that rate continues and no carbon gets removed from the atmosphere, we'd have about 25 years of emissions left.</p><p>Still, the impacts a 2-degree temperature increase will have on weather - including extreme heat and heavy precipitation - will be dramatically more severe. For every half-degree of warming, the frequency and intensity of heat waves and droughts increase. At the same time, the planet's permafrost, snow cover, glaciers, ice sheets, and Arctic sea ice shrinks.</p><h2>7 fast facts from the IPCC report</h2><div type="image" title="People in the water looking at a hill with smoke rising" height="1359" width="2000" msid="85174124" hostid="261"></div><p>The UN created the IPCC in 1988 to inform policymakers about how the climate is changing. This is its sixth assessment of existing scientific research.</p><p>For these reports, hundreds of scientists from across the globe comb through thousands of scientific papers. They assess how the climate is changing, the impacts of those changes, risks for the future, and what can be done. Almost all the observations and predictions in the report are assigned a level of likelihood or certainty. </p><p>Monday's report is just the first part of the IPCC's sixth assessment. The second and third will be released in early 2022.</p><p>Other key findings from the new report include:</p><ul><li>The global temperature between 2001 and 2020 was about 1 degree Celsius higher than it was between 1850 and 1900.</li><li>The world's average sea level rose by about half a foot (0.2 meters) between 1901 and 2018. The rate of annual sea-level rise nearly tripled during that time.</li><li>In 2019, the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere was higher than at any time in at least 2 million years. Concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide - more potent greenhouse gases than CO2 - were higher than at any time in at least 800,000 years.</li><li>Average yearly Arctic sea-ice levels between 2001 and 2020 were their lowest since 1850. The Arctic is likely to have a sea-ice free September at least once before 2050.</li><li>Major tropical cyclones, heat waves, and heavy precipitation events have increased in frequency around the globe over the last four decades.</li><li>Combinations of extreme events like heavy rainfall and hurricane-caused storm surge, paired with rising sea levels, will continue to make flooding more likely in coming decades.</li><li>The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, an ocean current that carries warm water north and cold water south, is weakening. If the current slows enough, Europe and the US East Coast would be hit by freezing temperatures.</li></ul>

The amount of warming that world leaders collectively agreed to avoid? It's inevitable in the next 20 years, a new report suggests.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Wynn Alan Bruce, a photographer from Colorado, died after setting himself on fire on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-earth-day-grew-from-single-protest-to-global-movement-2020-4">Earth Day</a>.</li><li>A friend of Bruce's said his actions were meant to call attention to the climate crisis.</li></ul><p>A Colorado <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/person-set-themself-on-fire-supreme-court-steps-washington-dc-2022-4">man</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/24/us/politics/climate-activist-self-immolation-supreme-court.html">died</a> from injuries after setting himself on fire outside the US <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-justice-stephen-breyer-retiring-2021-6">Supreme Court</a> on Friday — the day the world was celebrating Earth Day. Those who knew him said he was protesting inaction on the climate crisis.</p><p>Wynn Alan Bruce, a 50-year-old photographer and Buddhist from Boulder, self-immolated on the court's plaza at about 6:30 p.m. on Friday, a court representative told <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/person-sets-themself-fire-front-supreme-court-building-rcna25678">NBC News</a>. The police said he was airlifted for treatment and died from his injuries the following day.</p><p>On Sunday, a friend of Bruce's said the action was a planned protest. "This act is not <keyword id="11898483" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="suicide" source="Orion">suicide</keyword>. This is a deeply fearless act of compassion to bring attention to climate crisis," Kritee Kanko, a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, fellow Buddhist, and friend of Bruce's, said in <a href="https://twitter.com/KriteeKanko/status/1518102124713938948">a tweet</a>. "We are piecing together info but he had been planning it for at least one year."</p><p>In an interview with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/24/us/politics/climate-activist-self-immolation-supreme-court.html">The New York Times,</a> Kanko clarified that she was not completely sure of Bruce's intentions. "People are being driven to extreme amounts of climate grief and despair," she said, adding: "What I do not want to happen is that young people start thinking about self-immolation."</p><p>Kanko declined a request for comment from Insider and pointed to a <a href="https://twitter.com/RMEcodharma/status/1518657359547043840">statement</a> from Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center, where Bruce often attended meditations and retreats. "We want to emphasize that <em>none</em> of the Buddhist teachers in the Boulder area knew about his plans to self-immolate on this Earth Day," Buddhist leaders from the center wrote in a statement.</p><p>"We have <em>never</em> talked about self-immolation, and we do not think self-immolation is a climate action. Nevertheless, given the dire state of the planet and worsening climate crisis, we understand why someone might do that," they wrote, adding: "We hope we can hear Wynn's message without condoning his method."</p><div type="image" title="Wynn Bruce of Boulder, Colorado, died Saturday after he set himself on fire in an apparent protest of climate inaction." height="834" width="1113" msid="91085989" hostid="261"></div><p>Bruce shared his passion about the environment on social media and seemed to allude to his plan once, in a cryptic <a href="https://www.facebook.com/login/?next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fwynn.bruce%2Fposts%2F10158735911776489%3Fcomment_id%3D10159157276731489">Facebook comment</a> under a 2020 post of his, where he added a fire emoji and what turned out to be the date he self-immolated, 4/22/2022.</p><p>This is not the first time someone has set themself ablaze in the context of a climate protest. In 2018, David Buckel, a prominent gay-rights lawyer and environmental activist, set himself on fire in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. In a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/nyregion/david-buckel-fire-prospect-park-fossil-fuels.html">statement sent</a> to the media the morning of his death, he wrote: "My early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves."</p><p>As extreme weather events such as hurricanes, floods, storms, and wildfires intensify, activists have been ramping up their calls for climate action. Earlier this month, hundreds of climate scientists staged protests in cities around the world, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-risk-arrest-in-global-climate-protests-2022-4">engaging in civil disobedience by chaining themselves to banks</a>, blocking traffic, and throwing red paint on the steps of the Spanish parliament. Some were arrested.</p><p>These efforts follow a slew of concerning reports, including those of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-crisis-could-turn-around-this-decade-ipcc-report-2022-4">United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a>. In an assessment released earlier this month, UN scientists warned humanity had less than three years to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-alter-human-life-un-ipcc-report-2022-2">curb greenhouse-gas emissions</a> to avoid catastrophic climate effects.</p>

A man died after lighting himself on fire outside the Supreme Court on Earth Day. A friend said he was 'fearless' about bringing attention to the climate crisis.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Sixteen years of wildfire data reveal fire emissions now peak in August in the Pacific Northwest. </li><li>While carbon monoxide levels normally wane in hot summer months, they surge when blazes become more active.</li></ul><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/california-wildfire-crisis-getting-worse-climate-change-2019-10">Wildfire smoke</a> that blanketed much of the Pacific Northwest in recent years caused a new spike in unhealthy air pollutants in August, a report finds. </p><p>The research, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and published in the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29623-8#:~:text=We%20found%20that%20CO%20seasonal,in%20atmospheric%20pollution%20in%20August.">journal Nature Communications</a> Tuesday, reveals a new upward tick in harmful pollutants pumped into the air from persistent and intense fire activity. Researchers looked at 16 years of satellite-based carbon monoxide data and global inventories of fires, focusing on the period from 2002 to 2018. </p><p>Carbon monoxide levels — a trace gas resulting from fires, which serves as an indicator of the presence of even more harmful pollutants like <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/types-of-pollution-health-effects-2019-3">aerosols and ground-level ozone</a> — usually wane in hot summer months, due to chemical reactions in the atmosphere linked to changes in sunlight, according to the new study. But the researchers found a deviation from that trend, with carbon monoxide levels increasing sharply when Western blazes became much more active from 2012 to 2018. </p><p>"Wildfire emissions have increased so substantially that they're changing the annual pattern of air quality across North America," Rebecca Buchholz, NCAR scientist and lead author of the report, said in a <a href="https://news.ucar.edu/132838/pacific-northwest-wildfires-alter-air-pollution-patterns-across-north-america">statement</a>. "It's quite clear that there is a new peak of <keyword id="12230730" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="air-pollution" source="Orion">air pollution</keyword> in August that didn't used to exist."</p><p>Pandemic restrictions led to a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18922-7">plunge in fossil fuel use</a>, resulting in lower emissions. Still, researchers at NCAR who who worked on the new study point to how worsening <keyword id="11898861" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="wildfires" source="Orion">wildfires</keyword> are offsetting those emission reductions: Levels of <a href="https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution/particulate-matter-pm-basics#:~:text=PM2.5%20%3A%20fine%20inhalable%20particles,than%20the%20largest%20fine%20particle.">fine particulate pollution</a> — harmful, lung-damaging bits about 30 times smaller than a strand of human hair — rose by 7% in 2020, the worst wildfire season on record. </p><div type="image" title="A wildfire burns near Big Sur, California." height="4000" width="5334" msid="90966396" hostid="261"></div><p>Moreover, the new study highlights how air pollution can risk the health of millions of people. Researchers compared the rates at which people died of respiratory disease in Colorado during two six-year periods: from 2002 to 2011 and from 2012 to 2018. They found more people died during the 2012 to 2018 period, when smoke from flames far away in the Pacific Northwest — not stemming from Colorado fires — cloaked the air. Exposure to wildfire smoke has been <a href="https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution/how-smoke-fires-can-affect-your-health">linked</a> to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wildfire-smoke-makes-flu-coronavirus-worse-2020-9">major respiratory problems </a>and pregnancy complications. </p><p>"It's clear that more research is needed into the health implications of all this smoke," Buchholz said <a href="https://news.ucar.edu/132838/pacific-northwest-wildfires-alter-air-pollution-patterns-across-north-america">in a statement</a>. "We may already be seeing the consequences of these fires on the health of residents who live hundreds or even thousands of miles downwind."</p><p>A growing body of research further underscores the risks and realities of wildfires in a warming world. For instance, a report from the United Nations' <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-crisis-could-turn-around-this-decade-ipcc-report-2022-4">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> released last year found that fire season lengths have increased by <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/4/2021/07/05_Chapter-2-V6.pdf">almost 20%</a> since the 1980s. <a href="https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/number-wildfires-rise-50-2100-and-governments-are-not-prepared">Another UN report</a> released in March suggests the number of wildfires worldwide could increase by up to 14% by 2030, 30% by 2050, and 50% by 2100. </p><p>"There is definitely a feedback between fires and climate," Buchholz told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/18/wildfire-smoke-emissions-study-pacific-north-west">The Guardian</a>. Though wildfires are a natural phenomenon, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/summer-heat-waves-wildfires-link-to-climate-change-2019-7">scientists believe</a> the heat and dryness associated with human-influenced <keyword id="11896311" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate-change" source="Orion">climate change</keyword> feed bigger and stronger fires. </p><p>The Pacific Northwest is bracing for what is set to be another smoke-filled fire season with an "above-normal" number of wildfires — about 70,000 — predicted across the country for 2022, according to <a href="https://www.accuweather.com/en/health-wellness/western-wildfires-bring-new-peak-to-air-pollution-new-study-finds/1173924">forecasters from AccuWeather</a>.</p>

Air pollution levels usually dip in the summer. Smoke from Western wildfires changed that, with pollutants now peaking in August.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A new <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-effective-climate-solutions-to-implement-right-now-2022-4" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">UN report</a> calls for drastic, immediate cuts to heat-trapping gas emissions.</li><li>A small part of those cuts come from individual people <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cycling-boom-us-streets-infrastructure-bike-lanes-history-united-states-2020-12" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">biking</a> to work or wasting less <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/foods-getting-more-expensive-this-year-inflation-supply-fertilizer-war-2022-4" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">food</a>.</li></ul><p>Hundreds of<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-risk-arrest-in-global-climate-protests-2022-4" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored"> scientists</a> called for immediate, drastic <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-effective-climate-solutions-to-implement-right-now-2022-4" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">action</a> to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases in a<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-crisis-could-turn-around-this-decade-ipcc-report-2022-4" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored"> major report</a> last week.</p><p>The original goal set in the historic Paris Agreement — to limit<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-alter-human-life-un-ipcc-report-2022-2" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored"> global warming</a> to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures — is quickly fading into the rearview mirror. The new report, from the<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mass-animal-extinctions-climate-change-un-ipcc-report-2022-3" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored"> United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a>, drew a road map to give the planet one last chance at 1.5 degrees.</p><p>The <keyword id="6941656" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ipcc" source="Orion">IPCC</keyword> warned that emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide and<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/space-imagery-reveals-methane-pouring-from-the-us-russia-daily-2022-2" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored"> methane</a> must peak as soon as possible — in 2025 at the latest — then plummet to half their current levels by 2030, and drop to zero by 2050. That means drastic changes across all sectors of human life, especially a rapid transition away from <keyword id="11970530" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="fossil-fuels" source="Orion">fossil fuels</keyword>, such as coal and oil, to renewable-energy sources, such as solar and wind power.</p><p>Conversations about cutting emissions often involve a<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fossil-fuel-companies-spend-millions-to-promote-individual-responsibility-2021-3" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored"> familiar refrain</a>: What can I do? How can I make my lifestyle more sustainable?</p><p>The truth is that just a small fraction of the IPCC's road map involves individuals changing their day-to-day behaviors. There are some lifestyle changes that may be effective if people in the developing world deployed them en masse — diet, food waste, and transportation choices. But the report emphasized that government policies and better business practices were necessary to change human behavior on a large scale.</p><p>"Lifestyle choices and behavior is certainly important. But not everything is in our control," said Edward Byers, an energy and climate researcher at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and a lead author on the IPCC report.</p><p>You could switch your gas-guzzler for an electric vehicle tomorrow, Byers added, but you might not be able to choose whether the new car's electricity came from a solar farm or a coal-fired power plant.</p><h2><strong>'Influencers' make daily decisions with big emissions implications</strong></h2><p>For developed countries, such as the US, there are some straightforward lifestyle changes that would reduce emissions. For example, it could make a big difference if urban populations ditched their cars for biking, walking, and public transport.</p><p>But that only happens if planners and developers make cities more walkable by building homes near businesses, designing roads that are safe for bikes, and planning accessible, cheap public transit systems.</p><p>That's why Stephanie Roe, a lead author on the IPCC report and climate scientist at the World Wildlife Fund, thinks of individual action in terms of "influencers." Such people have the power to make large-scale choices as professionals — such as planning transit systems or deciding what a restaurant chain does with its extra food — which can either significantly reduce emissions or have cascading effects that influence other people's behavior.</p><p>"We assume a lot of times it needs to be these top-down decisions, either from the federal or state level, that can make these changes. But oftentimes it's actually the actions of individuals within these sectors that can make a big difference," Roe said. </p><p>"If you have somebody who builds houses for a living, for example — that developer or that builder can choose heat pumps over boilers, or they can choose induction stoves over gas stoves," she added. "Those kinds of decisions, that are not necessarily facilitated or incentivized yet by policy, are made on an individual basis."</p><p>Food waste, which <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/methanes-warming-power-spurs-sustainability-solutions-in-agriculture-2021-10" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">releases</a> powerful methane gas as it decomposes, is one problem whose solution may fall largely on individual consumers. The IPCC report found that in 2019, 61% of the world's food waste came from households.</p><p>Still, the report recommended the creation of education campaigns to reduce household food waste, policies to make expiration-date labels clearer, and improved packaging to extend shelf life.</p><p>"A lot of the responsibility to decarbonize lives with big businesses, industries, and governments to establish the correct incentives and regulatory frameworks," Byers said. There are "many, many things that the public can do in their everyday choices. This also requires centralized and coordinated action, and political will."</p>

Changing your personal lifestyle is just a small part of fixing the climate crisis

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-bill-nelson-russia-space-dmitry-rogozin-chief-roscosmos-2022-3">NASA</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-satellite-images-show-tonga-volcano-eruption-reached-mesosphere-2022-2">scientist</a> and three others were arrested after chaining themselves to a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elizabeth-warren-grills-jamie-dimon-chase-charging-overdraft-fees-pandemic-2021-5">Chase Bank</a> on Wednesday.</li><li>The action was one of more than a dozen <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-alter-human-life-un-ipcc-report-2022-2">climate</a> protests staged by Scientist Rebellion across the globe.</li></ul><p>A <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="nasa" source="Orion">NASA</keyword> scientist and three others were arrested in <keyword id="11940480" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="los-angeles" source="Orion">Los Angeles</keyword> on Wednesday after chaining themselves to the doors of a <keyword id="12279069" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="chase-bank" source="Orion">Chase Bank</keyword> office building.</p><p>JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co. <a href="https://apstylebook.com/businessinsider/ap_stylebook/jpmorgan-chase-co"></a> has invested more money in fossil fuels than any other bank, according to a 2020 <a href="http://priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2020/03/Banking_on_Climate_Change_2020.pdf">report</a> from the Sierra Club and other climate advocacy organizations. In addition to calling for immediate action to address the climate crisis, the protestors on Wednesday were calling for the company to divest from coal, oil, and gas.</p><p>Peter Kalmus, who studies biological systems and <keyword id="11896311" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate-change" source="Orion">climate change</keyword> at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, spoke to a crowd that assembled shortly after another protestor helped Kalmus chain himself to the handle of the bank's glass door. The event was <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ScientistRebellion/videos/438294118058895">livestreamed on </a><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ScientistRebellion/videos/438294118058895">Facebook</a><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ScientistRebellion/videos/438294118058895"></a>.</p><div type="image" title="protest in front of chase bank with four people in white lab coats chained to doors" height="1152" width="2048" msid="90697172" hostid="261"></div><p>"I'm willing to take a risk for this gorgeous planet, for my sons," Kalmus said, his voice cracking as he mentioned his children.</p><p>Covering his face for a moment, he continued, "We've been trying to warn you guys for so many decades that we're heading towards a fucking catastrophe, and we've been being ignored. The <keyword id="6367929" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="scientists" source="Orion">scientists</keyword> of the world are being ignored, and it's got to stop. We're not joking. We're not lying. We're not exaggerating."</p><div type="image" title="peter kalmus climate scientist speaking with microphone" height="1127" width="1500" msid="90696891" hostid="261"></div><p>Insider was unable to identify the other three people who chained themselves to the bank's doors. Nearly four hours later, more than two dozen police officers blocked off the road, removed the four protestors, and carried them away in a van.</p><p>JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co. declined to comment on Wednesday's events.</p><h2>Scientists are risking arrest in cities across the planet</h2><div type="image" title="protestors in white lab coats wearing a chain stand in a line with red smoke flares and signs" height="1680" width="2500" msid="90696892" hostid="261"></div><p>The actions of Kalmus and his companions were part of more than a dozen protests staged in cities across the globe this week, through a coalition called <a href="https://twitter.com/ScientistRebel1">Scientist Rebellion</a>, which is a branch of Extinction Rebellion dedicated to scientists taking actions of civil disobedience to advocate for climate action. This week's protests followed the release of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-effective-climate-solutions-to-implement-right-now-2022-4">United Nations' latest climate report</a>.</p><p>In Berlin, scientists glued their hands to the road to block a bridge. In Madrid, protestors threw red paint on the steps of the Spanish Parliament. In London, some <a href="https://extinctionrebellion.uk/2022/04/06/breaking-scientists-and-academics-throw-fake-oil-over-shell-hq/">threw fake oil</a> onto the facade of Shell's UK headquarters. In Sydney, five protestors, including a biology professor, were arrested after laying in the street to block traffic in pouring rain. In Washington, DC, people chained themselves to the fence surrounding the White House.</p><div type="image" title="police carry protestors in white lab coats away from spanish parliament steps covered in red paint" height="1666" width="2222" msid="90696894" hostid="261"></div><p>The report from the UN <keyword id="11911245" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change" source="Orion">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</keyword> (<keyword id="6941656" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ipcc" source="Orion">IPCC</keyword>) released Monday concluded that the world must peak emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide in less than three years to have a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial standard.</p><p>Surpassing that temperature increase would have catastrophic consequences beyond the climate change that's already driving extreme wildfires, hurricanes, droughts, and floods across the planet. The report found that the world's governments and corporations are far from meeting the emission-reduction goals that would help limit that extreme weather.</p><div type="image" title="gloved police officer uses paintbrush to remove glue holding protestor's hand to asphalt road" height="1657" width="2210" msid="90696895" hostid="261"></div><p>"Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals, but the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels," António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said in a press briefing on Monday.</p><p>"It's now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C," Jim Skea, co-chair of the IPCC group that wrote the new report, said in a <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/resources/press/press-release/">press release</a>. "Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible."</p><p>Researchers representing Scientist Rebellion also participated in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03430-5">protests</a> surrounding the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, last year, where 15 scientists were arrested.</p><p>"This planet is everything, and it's time we start acting like it," Kalmus said.</p>

NASA scientist arrested after chaining himself to Chase Bank as part of global climate protests

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-crisis-could-turn-around-this-decade-ipcc-report-2022-4">major UN report</a> offers a playbook for averting the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-crisis-endangers-women-girls-pregnant-people-2022-3">worst</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/allergy-season-may-last-longer-with-double-the-pollen-study-2022-3">effects</a> of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/Antarctica-ice-shelf-previously-thought-stable-collapses-2022-3">climate change</a>, if the world acts now.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-estimate-9000-tree-species-are-still-unknown-to-them-2022-1">Forests</a>, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-solar-power-plan-clean-energy-by-2050-2021-9">solar</a> farms, and compact <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-investing-green-infrastructure-manage-climate-change-2022-3">cities</a> with electric buses can make a huge difference this decade.</li></ul><p>We only have three years left to avert the worst <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mass-animal-extinctions-climate-change-un-ipcc-report-2022-3">consequences</a> of <keyword id="11896311" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate-change" source="Orion">climate change</keyword>, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-crisis-could-turn-around-this-decade-ipcc-report-2022-4">a sobering report from the United Nations</a> warned on Monday.</p><p>Human activities are releasing heat-trapping gases, like carbon dioxide and methane, into the atmosphere. That's caused global temperatures to rise 1.1 degrees Celsius in the last 170 years, and the planet is on track to warm roughly 2 more degrees by the end of the century, catastrophically endangering humans' physical health, our food and water supply, the availability of safe places to live, and the survival of animal species.</p><p>However, there is still time to change our ways. That's the focus of the new report from the UN's <keyword id="11911245" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change" source="Orion">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</keyword> (<keyword id="6941656" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ipcc" source="Orion">IPCC</keyword>), authored by hundreds of scientists from across the globe.</p><p>"As long as you want to keep temperatures below about 3 degrees, we needed to peak emissions immediately, as soon as possible — ideally five to 10 years ago — and the latest, before 2025," Edward Byers, an energy and climate researcher at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, and a lead author on the report, told Insider.</p><div type="image" title="farmer walks through field of dried brown soybean plants" height="1666" width="2222" msid="90694521" hostid="261"></div><p>If global emissions of heat-trapping gases peak by 2025, plummet to half their current level by 2030, and drop to zero by 2050 — there's a chance the planet won't warm past 1.5 degrees. In nearly 3,000 pages, the report lays out a playbook to meet that ambitious timeline.</p><p>Many of the measures in the IPCC's roadmap are cheap, quick, and doable with current technology. Some, like improved mass-transit systems, offer additional benefits, like creating new jobs and addressing socioeconomic inequity.</p><p>"The global benefits of climate action exceed the cost," Stephanie Roe, a lead author on the report and a climate scientist at the World Wildlife Fund, told Insider.</p><p>"It's still possible," Byers said.</p><p>Here are five straightforward climate actions that governments and businesses of all sizes can tackle right now.</p><h2>Retrofit cities for electrified transit, biking, and walking</h2><div type="image" title="electric buses lined up inside factory" height="1667" width="2500" msid="90694523" hostid="261"></div><p>Cities and urban areas make up two-thirds of all global emissions, according to the new IPCC report. Redesigning urban transportation could cut about one-quarter of those emissions by 2050.</p><p>That means building housing near workplaces, so that residents have short commutes, and designing streets that encourage biking, walking, or taking shared public transit instead of driving personal vehicles. The IPCC also recommends running public buses, trams, and other transit vehicles on electricity rather than oil.</p><p>The report found that these measures would ultimately save money. They would likely improve local air quality, too.</p><h2>Ditch <keyword id="11970530" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="fossil-fuels" source="Orion">fossil fuels</keyword> for solar and wind power</h2><div type="image" title="wind turbines and church silhouetted against sunset" height="1667" width="2500" msid="90694525" hostid="261"></div><p>Electric buses and trains won't drive down emissions much if their energy comes from coal-fired power plants. Fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas release lots of carbon dioxide and methane when we burn them for energy.</p><p>For that reason, the energy sector is a far bigger greenhouse-gas polluter than sectors like agriculture or transport. In 2019, energy suppliers produced about 34% of all human-driven emissions worldwide, according to the IPCC report.</p><p>Climate scientists' core message: We must stop using fossil fuels as quickly as possible.</p><p>Every pathway to limit warming to 1.5 or even 2 degrees requires almost eliminating fossil-fuel use by the 2050s, Byers said.</p><div type="image" title="worker in yellow hard hat standing amid field of solar panels spraying water" height="1666" width="2222" msid="90694527" hostid="261"></div><p>The good <keyword id="11893589" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news" source="Orion">news</keyword> is that <keyword id="12265703" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="wind-turbines" source="Orion">wind turbines</keyword> and solar panels have become significantly cheaper to install and operate in the last decade. Now, renewable energy is often competitive with fossil fuels. Governments, businesses, and households should draw energy from wind and solar farms whenever possible, the report recommends.</p><p>"Renewables can be done rapidly and very cheaply nowadays," Byers said, adding, "The electricity sector has made lots of progress on this."</p><h2>Cut methane emissions by patching leaks</h2><h2><div type="image" title="flames black cloud rising from flarestacks natural gas facility" height="1666" width="2222" msid="90694529" hostid="261"></div></h2><p>Nearly one-fifth of all the energy sector's emissions are methane — a powerful gas with 30 times the heat-trapping potential of carbon dioxide.</p><p>Most of that methane comes from "fugitive emissions," meaning leaks from fossil-fuel transportation and processing facilities. An analysis of satellite images from 2019 and 2020 found <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/space-imagery-reveals-methane-pouring-from-the-us-russia-daily-2022-2">more than 1,800 methane plumes along gas pipelines</a> all over the globe. Altogether, the study calculated, those leaks' emissions were comparable to 20 million additional vehicles on the road for a year.</p><p>Because the gas has such a potent heating effect in the atmosphere, a drop in methane emissions can help rapidly reduce the speed of global warming. Patching gas leaks would probably save energy companies money, too.</p><p>"That is a really low-hanging fruit, I think, that can be easily addressed," Roe said.</p><h2>Stop wasting food</h2><div type="image" title="volunteer carries bags of potatoes at drive-thru potato handout" height="1666" width="2223" msid="90694532" hostid="261"></div><p>Methane also comes from livestock and waste facilities, as cows belch and garbage decomposes. Landfills are the third-largest source of methane emissions in the US, and food waste is the largest category of garbage, according to the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/sustainable-management-food-basics">Environmental Protection Agency</a>. The <a href="https://www.usda.gov/foodlossandwaste/why">Department of Agriculture</a> estimates that 30-40% of the US food supply is wasted.</p><p>Wasting less food would mean fewer methane emissions at the landfill and could also reduce emissions upstream in food production. Using food that previously would have gone to waste could allow us to produce less of it, which would mean fewer emissions from fertilizer, farming, and food-processing machinery.</p><div type="image" title="field of plowed lettuce" height="1666" width="2222" msid="90694535" hostid="261"></div><p>That's a lifestyle change that individuals and families can make in developed countries. According to the IPCC report, 61% of the world's food waste came from households in 2019.</p><p>"That is an easy way to both increase efficiencies and reduce your own costs as a consumer, reduce the cost down the supply chain, and make a big, big difference in terms of reducing emissions, but also limiting and reducing pressure on land," Roe said.</p><h2>Protect <keyword id="13075240" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="forests" source="Orion">forests</keyword> and grow more of them</h2><div type="image" title="man with binoculars surveys rainforest canopy green trees" height="1998" width="2664" msid="90694537" hostid="261"></div><p>Trees thrive by absorbing carbon dioxide from the air and storing it in their tissues. That's why forests can be a powerful tool to slow global warming.</p><p>The IPCC report calls for protecting forests across the planet from deforestation, or the die-off of trees from changing climate conditions, fires, or humans cutting them down. It also points to afforestation, meaning planting new trees where there are none.</p><p>"Afforestation is something that can be deployed today," Byers said.</p><p>Growing trees takes time, he added, but "it can be done in every country in the world."</p><p>In this decade, the IPCC's plan could cost $100 or less for every ton of carbon dioxide emissions it prevents. More than half of those mitigation strategies cost just $20 or less per ton, the report estimates. Many of them would ultimately save money.</p><p>But relying on just one solution isn't enough.</p><p>"There are no silver bullets. We need to do it all," Roe said.</p>

Scientists say climate solutions like solar power and walkable cities are cheap, doable, and can make a dent in the crisis

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/costs-of-being-single-woman-taxes-wages-social-life-2022-2">Women</a> and <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/investing-in-girls-education-can-boost-developing-nations-gdp-citi-2020-10-1029728823">girls</a> face unique risks as the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mass-animal-extinctions-climate-change-un-ipcc-report-2022-3">climate crisis</a> deepens, according to a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-alter-human-life-un-ipcc-report-2022-2">new UN report</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-show-bathtub-ring-along-a-parched-los-angeles-reservoir-2021-7">Water</a> scarcity can lead to increased violence against <keyword id="11892913" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="women" source="Orion">women</keyword> and <keyword id="12720160" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="girls" source="Orion">girls</keyword>, who are often responsible for fetching water.</li></ul><p>Roughly half of people on the planet are at heightened risk from <keyword id="11896311" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate-change" source="Orion">climate change</keyword>, a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mass-animal-extinctions-climate-change-un-ipcc-report-2022-3">grim report</a> published this week by the United Nations revealed. Women and girls, along with pregnant people and the fetuses they carry, face greater health and safety issues from rising temperatures than men.</p><p>"All women are at increased risk," Rupa Basu, chief of air and climate epidemiology at the California Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, who was not involved in the report, told Insider.</p><p>Women and girls are both more likely than men to die in extreme weather events, more at risk of domestic and sexual violence in the aftermath, and more likely to suffer food insecurity, according to the report. When pregnant, such catastrophes can lead to serious complications.</p><div type="image" title="pregnant woman with belly exposed talks to child next to water spout" height="1665" width="2220" msid="90018619" hostid="261"></div><p>"Women are more exposed, and this is because we see that climate change exacerbates existing inequalities so much," Marlene Achoki, who co-leads global policy on climate justice for the humanitarian organization CARE, told Insider.</p><p>Men often have control over critical resources like food and water, while women tend to have less credit and mobility to help them adapt to new extremes, according to the report.</p><p>The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (<keyword id="6941656" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ipcc" source="Orion">IPCC</keyword>) recruited hundreds of scientists to summarize years of research for its sixth climate assessment. The first working group shared its findings last year, focusing on the physical changes to our planet. Monday's publication, from the second working group, examines how those changes will affect ecosystems and human lives.</p><p>The report projects that extreme weather — floods, droughts, and <keyword id="11930977" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="heat" source="Orion">heat</keyword> waves — will become more frequent and more severe in the coming decades, driving food and water shortages across the globe. To protect women, girls, and pregnant people, governments must start preparing for these disasters, and their health outcomes, now.</p><p>"I'm happy to see that pregnant women and women and girls are included in this report," Basu said, adding, "For so long, they were kind of just missed as being a high-risk population."</p><h2>Women trek miles in extreme heat and face violence to fetch water</h2><div type="image" title="three women walk through field carrying water jerrycans on heads" height="1665" width="2220" msid="90018622" hostid="261"></div><p>In places where drinking water doesn't come from a tap, women and girls trek out of town to collect water, according to the IPCC report. During droughts, they often have to walk to more distant water sites, putting them at risk of heat stroke, as well as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/nov/03/we-run-from-men-only-to-meet-crocodiles-kenyas-drought-is-deadly-for-women">gender-based violence</a>.</p><p>Aditi Mukherji, who led the water chapter of the new IPCC report, said where she lives in India, women have to walk long distances for water. Achoki said she's seen the same thing in Kenya.</p><p>"When I travel to the northern part of our country, that is at the edge of the border, it is so hot. Just one step when I land down to the airstrip and I feel like going back to the plane," Achoki told Insider.</p><p>In this heat, she said, women and girls sometimes walk as far as 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) to fetch water. When they reach it, long lines often await them. In the process, they face an increased risk of injuries, encounters with dangerous animals, and sexual abuse, such as demand for sexual favors in exchange for water, according to the IPCC report.</p><div type="image" title="woman in headscarf squats to collect grain" height="1875" width="2500" msid="90018624" hostid="261"></div><p>Increased access to water, like local community taps, wells, and better water-storage facilities could help protect women and girls as droughts grow more prolonged and severe. The challenge is getting governments and organizations to pay for those fixes.</p><p>"It's not as if the solutions are new or anything. It's often about lack of finance," Mukerheji told Insider.</p><h2>Risks rise during <keyword id="6357793" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="pregnancy" source="Orion">pregnancy</keyword>: 'You feel a little helpless in a way'</h2><div type="image" title="pregnant woman wearing black shades eyes from the sun in arizona desert" height="1669" width="2225" msid="90018627" hostid="261"></div><p>Basu usually runs cold — she'll find herself shivering on warm, sunny days in Oakland, California. But that changed when she got pregnant. Suddenly she would heat up and break out in a sweat, while everyone around her seemed perfectly comfortable.</p><p>"I just couldn't regulate my body temperature," she said.</p><p>She had studied how heat affects high-risk populations, like older people, but she didn't expect to be one of them anytime soon.</p><p>"I was kind of feeling like, 'Oh, I get it now. I can feel it,'" she said. "You feel a little helpless in a way."</p><p>Basu's experience made her wonder if pregnant people, too, were uniquely vulnerable to extreme heat.</p><div type="image" title="A masked pregnant woman holding her stomach" height="1749" width="2332" msid="90018629" hostid="261"></div><p>Soon she led an analysis of nearly 60,000 births across 16 California counties, comparing birth outcomes with weekly averages of apparent temperature (which accounts for humidity) from the parents' residential zip codes. She found that an increase of 10 degrees Fahrenheit was associated with 8.6% more preterm births. The <a href="https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/172/10/1108/90774?login=true">study</a> was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 2010.</p><p>Since then, <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m3811#:~:text=Association%20with%20preterm%20births%20and,1.16%2Dfold%20higher%20during%20heatwaves.">further</a> <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4468458/">studies</a> have found similar relationships between temperature increases or heat waves and a rise in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6263858/">preterm</a> births or <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33781772/">stillbirths</a>.</p><p>"Only in the last decade do we have any data at all to support the association between heat and adverse birth outcomes," Basu said.</p><p>Several studies cited in the IPCC report suggest that extreme heat, airborne particulates like those carried in wildfire smoke, and water-related illnesses are linked to higher rates of miscarriage, stillbirth, low birth weight, and preterm birth.</p><div type="image" title="A pregnant mother receives the COVID-19 vaccine at a maternity clinic in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Aug. 24, 2021." height="3474" width="4632" msid="90018631" hostid="261"></div><p>Still, heat advisories often leave pregnant people out of their recommendations for vulnerable populations. Similar to older or immunocompromised people, Basu said, pregnant people may need to take extra precautions — keeping cool and inactive on hot days, or staying indoors with an air filter when wildfire smoke adds moderate levels of particulate matter to the air.</p><p>"I keep coming back to the same point, to not just look at the general population and see what's happening, but then to look at the really high-risk, most vulnerable populations and also consider them," Basu said, adding, "I think that's often missed, and then we're not really getting the whole picture."</p>

You Searched For "ipcc report" and got 11 results

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NASA scientist arrested after chaining himself to Chase Bank as part of global climate protests

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