Nowhere to run: UN report on global warming

It’s just guaranteed that it’s going to get worse, said report co-author Linda Mearns, a senior climate scientist at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. But scientists also eased back a bit on the likelihood of the absolute worst climate catastrophes. 

The authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which calls climate change clearly human-caused and unequivocal, makes more precise and warmer forecasts for the 21st century than it did last time it was issued in 2013. 

Each of five scenarios for the future, based on how much carbon emissions are cut, passes the more stringent of two thresholds set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. 

World leaders agreed then to try to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above levels in the late 19th century because problems mount quickly after that. The world has already warmed nearly 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) in the past century and a half. Under each scenario, the report said, the world will cross the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming mark in the 2030s, earlier than some past predictions. Warming has ramped up in recent years, data shows. Our report shows that we need to be prepared for going into that level of warming in the coming decades.