The world Meteorological Organisation (WMO), has warned that if no climate adaptation and mitigation measures are given priority and effectively implemented, the world is continuing to get hit harder by the effects of climate change.
Speaking during the presentation of the Sixth Synthesis report, Prof. Petteri Taalas, the Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organisation said, the World is heading towards 2.2 – 3.5 °C of warming.
The presentation which was held on March 20, in Switzerland, was organised by the Intergovernmental Parties on Climate Change (IPCC). According to Prof. Taalas, warming of 3°C would have drastic impact on human health, biosphere, food security, refugees and global economy.
“Mainstreaming effective and equitable climate action will not only reduce losses and damages for
nature and people, it will also provide wider benefits,” said IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee.
In 2018, IPCC highlighted the unprecedented scale of the challenge required to keep warming to
1.5°C. Five years later, the challenge has become even greater due to a continued increase in
greenhouse gas emissions.
According to the preliminary Synthesis report, the pace and scale of what has been done so far, and current plans, are insufficient to tackle climate change.
“More than a century of burning fossil fuels as well as unequal and unsustainable energy and land use has led to global warming of 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels. This has resulted in more frequent and more intense extreme weather events that have caused increasingly dangerous impacts on nature and people in every region of the world,” the report is quoted in part.
The Executive Director of United Nations Environment Programme, Inger Andersen, expressed concern on how climate change is hitting hard at the vulnerable communities that bear the least responsibility, citing examples of the; Cyclone Freddy in Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar and the floods in Turkey that all killed hundreds of people.
She says the only way to make the synthesis report meaningful is for; nations, businesses, investors, and every individual who contributes to climate change, to move from climate procrastination to climate activation with immediate effect.
The IPCC chairperson Hoesung Lee, described the synthesis report that was prepared by more than 780 scientists from both developing and developed countries, as a textbook for addressing climate change issues that have put nations on great tension.
The report, approved during a week-long session in Interlaken, brings in to sharp focus the losses and damages that the world is already experiencing, and will continue into the future, hitting the most vulnerable people and ecosystems hard.
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