UN climate experts said Monday that humanity has less than three years to prevent the rise of planet-warming carbon emissions and less than a decade to reduce them by nearly half, warning that the world is in a last-ditch effort to preserve a "livable future."
That difficult task is still achievable, but existing policies are leading to catastrophic temperature rises, according to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The 2,800-page report details "a litany of broken climate promises," according to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in a harsh assessment of governments and industry.
"Some government and business leaders are saying one thing - but doing another. Simply put, they are lying. And the results will be catastrophic," Guterres said.
The IPCC has recently released the first two volumes of a trilogy of massive scientific assessments on how greenhouse gas emissions are heating the globe and what this means for life on Earth.
This third report describes what we can do to address the situation.
To do so, the planet must drastically reduce the use of fossil fuels, which account for the vast majority of emissions.
To meet the Paris objectives, nations should totally phase out coal use and reduce oil and gas consumption by 60 and 70 percent, respectively, according to the IPCC, noting that solar and wind energy are now cheaper than fossil fuels in many locations.
However, according to the IPCC, reducing emissions is no longer sufficient. Technologies for sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere, which are currently not operating at scale, will need to be massively scaled up.
While government policies, investments, and regulations will help to reduce emissions, the IPCC also stated that people may make a significant difference.
By 2050, reducing greenhouse gas emissions through 40 to 70 percent might be achieved by reducing long-haul flights, moving to plant-based diets, climate-proofing buildings, and other methods of reducing consumption that drives energy demand.
According to the findings, those who have the most pollute the most.
The findings of the report will be used to inform high-level UN political talks, which will resume in November in Egypt for COP 27.
According to the research, recently updated national climate pledges emanating from these negotiations still place the 1.5C target "beyond reach."
With the conflict in Ukraine fueling efforts in the West to shift away from Russian oil and gas, analysts said the report should focus governments' attention on climate pledges.
"It's now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5C," Jim Skea, a professor at Imperial College London and co-chair of the working group behind the report, said.
