New report expected to highlight the ‘devastating’ impacts of climate change

A new United Nations report is expected to give the starkest warning yet of the devastating impacts of the climate crisis. 

On Monday (February 14), the virtual approval session will begin for the latest climate science report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 

If approved, the several-thousand-page scientific assessment report will be released on 28 February 2022 at 9 am GMT.

The report is expected to outline the severe impacts of a warming world on natural and human systems and how adaptions can help to reduce vulnerability and manage risks. It is also expected to highlight the devasting consequences of climate change for people and nature. 

Dr. Stephen Cornelius, Chief Adviser on Climate Change and WWF Global Lead for IPCC, said: ‘The upcoming climate report from the IPCC is expected to lay bare the devastating impacts that delayed action and weak implementation of countries’ climate promises are having on people and nature.

‘Over the past year we’ve seen more examples of the ruin to lives and livelihoods caused by more frequent extreme events, from heatwaves to floods and wildfires. This offers a small glimpse of what a warmer world brings. We know that to help communities and ecosystems now and in the years to come, governments need to invest more to build climate resilience and to slash polluting carbon emissions to give adaptation a fighting chance.’

In related news, the most recent IPCC report, which was published in August 2021 highlighted that Climate change is ‘widespread, rapid, and intensifying.

The report explained that many of the changes observed are unprecedented in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years, and some of the changes are irreversible over hundreds of thousands of years, such as sea-level rise.