Category: Politics_International_MN SCIENCE_MN

Crucial scientific projects in the Arctic are in limbo — and their progress is under threat — as Russia becomes more isolated from the world for its invasion of Ukraine. Why it matters: These research collaborations provide key insights about the effects of climate change, the health of the oceans and geology — and they underpin cooperation among the U.S., Russia and others in the geopolitical hotspots of the Arctic and Antarctica.

From wildfires to sea level rise and heat waves, climate change is having a dramatic impact on the environment and people’s health and well-being. So what can the world do about it? That’s the focus of the third and final report — released Monday — from a recent cycle of climate discussions among scientists with the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. More than 230 authors contributed to the report, which summarizes researchers’ best thinking on how to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases that are causing climate change.

Temperatures on Earth will shoot past a key danger point unless greenhouse gas emissions fall faster than countries have committed, the world’s top body of climate scientists said Monday, warning of the consequences of inaction but also noting hopeful signs of progress.

With the world on track to blaze past its climate goals, only immediate, sweeping societal transformation can stave off catastrophic warming. The world is on track to blaze past a crucial climate target within eight years, some of the planet’s top researchers, economists and social scientists said in a sober assessment.

Countries must make major, rapid shifts away from fossil fuels and to renewable energy to meet the goals in the 2015 Paris agreement, climate experts tapped by the United Nations said in a report…

The time for talk has passed and the time to act is now, according to a new United Nations report on how to curb the worst consequences of climate change. Rapid mitigation measures – reductions in fossil fuels and better building practices – are needed to avoid unsustainable global warming, according to the report. In fact, the report says, without immediate and deep emission reductions across all sectors, limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is “beyond reach.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the third chapter of the Sixth Assessment Report covering climate mitigation. And its findings are grim. United Nations secretary general António Guterres called it a “litany of broken climate promises” and a “file of shame cataloging the empty pledges that put us firmly on track towards an unlivable world.”

We have the knowledge, money, technology and affordable clean energy that we need to cut our carbon emissions in half by 2030. That’s the good news from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Working Group III report. What’s standing in the way is lack of political will and sufficient funding to make the necessary rapid, widespread, cross-sector changes a reality, according to the report.

For decades, the key to halting climate change has been clear: The world must reduce net greenhouse gas emissions down to zero. Now, a comprehensive new U.N. climate report summarizes years of studies from climate scientists, social scientists, economists, energy experts, policy specialists and others on how to make that happen.

The United Nations’ climate change panel is calling for a “substantial reduction” in the global use of fossil fuels in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Warning there is limited time to act, the latest report from the panel says that by 2030, greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut by at least 43 percent to prevent 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming at the end of the century — a key threshold that would help the world evade much of the potential climate damage.