Urgent action on climate change is required 'to secure a liveable future,' according to a United Nations report

Villagers make a dam with mud in plastic bags to protect their only road in Pratap Nagar, that lies in the Shyamnagar region, in Satkhira, Bangladesh on Oct. 5, 2021.Mahmud Hossain Opu / AP file

The report, written by 270 scientists from 67 countries, explains how global warming is already wreaking havoc on the planet

Climate change is no longer a distant threat; it is an ongoing disaster that is already endangering humans and natural environments around the world, according to an urgent new United Nations report that warns that the world is running out of time to avert the most devastating consequences of global warming.

The report, released Monday by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, outlines the growing threat that climate change poses to human health, infrastructure, food and water resource stability, and the biodiversity of the planet's ecosystems.

The assessment, produced by 270 scientists from 67 countries who comprise the IPCC's so-called Working Group II, represents broad agreement within the scientific community about how global warming is affecting people and the environment — and the potential consequences of inaction.

"The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human well-being and the health of the planet," climatologist Hans-Otto Pörtner, co-chair of the IPCC's Working Group II, said in a statement. "Any further delay in concerted global action will result in the loss of a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a livable future."

According to the report, if global warming exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius, humanity will face a slew of climate hazards in the coming decades (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Climate change caused by humans has already contributed to the planet warming by about 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

The impact of climate change on food and water availability is particularly concerning. According to the report, heat waves, droughts, and floods exacerbated by climate change have already exposed millions of people around the world to acute food and water insecurity.

"Overall, the picture for food systems is stark," Rachel Bezner Kerr, a professor of global development at Cornell University, said in a news briefing on Sunday. "No one is immune to the effects of climate change."

Despite the fact that climate change is expected to affect every region of the globe, the assessment discovered that people in Africa, Asia, South America, and Central America are particularly vulnerable and at a higher risk of negative consequences, including death. According to the report, residents of the Arctic and small island countries bear an unequal burden of climate impacts.

View of destroyed homes after a mudslide in Petropolis, Brazil on Feb. 16, 2022.Carl de Souza / AFP via Getty Images file

Bezner Kerr stated that aggressive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow the rate of climate change will help reduce the more dire consequences of global warming, adding that "every additional degree of warming will increase the risk of severe impacts."

The IPCC report also emphasized the growing threat of global warming to human health, including the impact of climate change on people's mental health — a first for the IPCC. Emerging research, for example, has shown that increased exposure to heat waves, wildfires, and other extreme weather events can have a negative impact on mental health.

Among the dire warnings addressed in the new assessment is that the hardest-hit people and ecosystems are also the ones least able to cope, such as low-income populations and low-lying coastal regions vulnerable to rising sea levels.

Many of the risks exacerbated by climate change are intertwined with issues already confronting those communities, such as rising social inequality, unsustainable resource use, losses and damages from disasters and other extreme weather events, and ongoing ramifications of the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Our assessment clearly shows that addressing all of these different challenges requires everyone — governments, the private sector, civil society — working together to prioritize risk reduction, as well as equity and justice, in decision-making and investment," said Working Group II co-chair Debra Roberts, the head of the Sustainable and Resilient City Initiatives Unit in eThekwini Municipality in Durban, South Africa.

Aerial view of a car and debris after the Rio das Velhas overflow in Honorio Bicalho, Brazil, on Jan. 12, 2022.Pedro Vilela / Getty Images file

Inaction, on the other hand, could be disastrous, according to the report. Climate change is having irreversible effects on certain species and ecosystems, according to Camille Parmesan, an adjunct professor of geological sciences at the University of Texas at Austin and one of the report's authors.

"It's very clear that wild species and natural systems are already being pushed right up against hard limits," said Parmesan. "That's why species are becoming extinct." That's why we're seeing massive changes in the most vulnerable ecosystems — mountaintops and the High Arctic."

According to John Kerry, the United States' special presidential envoy for climate, the IPCC assessment paints a "dangerous picture" of how global warming is already affecting humanity and outlines the risks of ignoring climate science.

"We've seen an increase in climate-driven extreme events, as well as the devastation they leave behind — lives lost and livelihoods destroyed," Kerry said in a statement. "At this point, the question is not whether we can completely avoid the crisis, but whether we can avoid the worst consequences."

The IPCC, which was founded in the late 1980s, is made up of thousands of scientists from 195 member countries who sift through the most recent published and peer-reviewed research on global warming and compile the findings into a report on the current state of the climate.

The new report is part of the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report, or AR6, which is the most recent summary of climate change research. The full assessment is divided into four sections: the Working Group I report on climate change science, which was released last year; the Working Group II report on vulnerabilities and socioeconomic impacts; the upcoming Working Group III report on potential ways to mitigate climate change, which will be released in April; and the Synthesis Report, which reviews the findings from all of the working groups and integrates relevant information for policymakers.