IPCC report underlines global leaders’ dangerous climate roulette
The drive for certainty has been the enemy of action in this planetary emergency. The latest update leaves no doubt about the science. It is past time to stop spinning the wheel.
The message from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change leaves no room for doubt, scepticism or denial: “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, human influence on the climate system is clear, and limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.”
That conclusion was reached not in 2021 but in 2013, in the IPCC’s fifth assessment report. The sixth and newest IPCC summary of the science, released on Monday, says much the same but lays out more stridently the data points of the man-made climate emergency: the past five years are the hottest on record since 1850; heatwaves have become more frequent and cold spells less chilly; glaciers are retreating at speed.
