IPCC report: Here’s how we can defuse the ‘ticking time bomb’ of climate change

“If we act now, we can still secure a liveable, sustainable future for all,” Chair Hoesung Lee said at the launch of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

Written by the world’s leading climate experts, it lays out a clear path to drastically cut emissions and repair the damage that’s already been done. But it requires governments to get onboard and fund it - without delay.

This Synthesis Report brings together all the most up-to-date science on our warming planet.

It shows that, despite the unprecedented scale of the challenge, there are many solutions available to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Most importantly, they are available to us right now.

In 2018, the IPCC made the world aware of the unprecedented challenge of keeping global warming to 1.5°C. Five years later, it says that the challenge has become even bigger as GHG emissions have continued to rise.

The pace and scale of what has been done so far are insufficient to tackle climate change.

IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee adds that the Synthesis Report “underscores the urgency of taking more ambitious action”.

Scientists say that more than a century of burning fossil fuels as well as unequal land and energy use has led to global warming of 1.1°C. It has led to more frequent and intense extreme weather events that have impacted people around the world.

As the planet warms these hazards rapidly escalate. We see heavier rainfall, more intense heatwaves and other extreme weather. 

“Humanity is on thin ice - and that ice is melting fast,” UN Secretary-General, António Guterres told a conference at the launch of the report.

He said that it details how humans are responsible for virtually all global heating over the last 200 years.

“The climate time