UN's Inter-govt Panel on Climate Change releases its 6th assessment report

The United Nation's Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, of which India is one of the 195 members, has released its sixth assessment report yesterday.

 

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres called the IPCC's assessment, the most detailed review of climate science ever conducted and code red for humanity.

 

Mr Guterres said in a statement that this report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet.

 

Countries should also end all new fossil fuel exploration and production and shift fossil fuel subsidies into renewable energy, he added.

 

In its first major scientific assessment since 2014, the IPCC said that Earth's average



surface temperature is projected to hit 1.5 or 1.6 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels at around 2030, no matter what trajectory greenhouse gas emissions take in the meantime.

 

Mr Guterres said, the alarm bells are deafening and the evidence is irrefutable; greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk.

 

He called on world leaders to ensure the COP26 climate summit in November leads to ramped up emissions cuts and finance to countries already dealing with the fallout from global heating.

 

As report makes clear, there is no time for delay and no room for excuses, he added.