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“Code Red for Humanity”: UN Climate Change Panel in its eye-opening 6th Assessment Report

"India is expected to experience an intensification in monsoon precipitation and a decline in snow volume in the Himalayan region"

“Earth’s climate is getting so hot that temperatures in about a decade will probably blow past a level of warming that world leaders have sought to prevent”, states the United Nation’s Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change in its sixth assessment report released on Monday, that it has rightly called a “code red for humanity”.

The report, which has come as an eye-opener to the world is the most detailed review of climate science ever conducted. It notes the changes that have been observed in the Earth’s climate in every region and across the whole climate system. Some of the changes have already set in motion, such as continued sea-level rise, and are irreversible over hundreds to thousands of years.

While the report reaffirms that drastic and rapid cuts in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases can limit climate change, nations would have to unanimously agree to it. However, even if nations somehow agree to make immediate and drastic cuts, it could take 20-30 years to see global temperatures stabilize although benefits for air quality would come quickly

10 critical points discussed in the report:

  • The new estimates of chances of crossing the global warming level of 1.5 degrees celsius or even 2 degrees Celsius “will be beyond reach” in the next two decades without urgent reductions in greenhouse emissions. The 1.5 degrees Celsius is an important global target because, beyond this, tipping points (irreversible change in the climate system) will be more more likely, the UN Climate report said.
  • The report mentioned that ice melt and sea levels are already speeding up. Wild weather events such as heatwaves and storms are also expected to worsen and become more frequent. Due to the greenhouse gases already discharged into the atmosphere by humans, some changes will be “irreversible” for centuries.
  • Noting that we are running out of time, the IPCC report 2021 said that meeting the 2015 Paris Agreement goal that aims to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will need sticking to “carbon budget”. The Climate budget is the number of greenhouse gases that can be emitted for a given level of global warming. 
  • Summertime sea ice atop the Arctic Ocean will vanish entirely at least once by 2050, under the IPCC’s most optimistic scenario. The region is the fastest-warming area of the globe – warming at least twice as fast as the global average.
  • The IPCC sixth assessment report said that it is not just about temperature. Climate change will increase global heat. Some areas will witness intense rains and flooding while others will face severe drought. Once-in-10-year and once-in-50-year events of extreme heat, heavy rain and droughts will become more frequent and intense.
  • The report noted that a “strong and sustained” deduction in carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases will benefit the environment as air quality will improve quickly while global temperatures could take 20 to 30 years to stabilize.

What this means for India

In a grave statement, the report has warned that increasing heatwaves and droughts, increased rainfall events, and more cyclonic activity are likely to occur across India and the subcontinent over the next few decades.

“The observed mean surface temperature increase has clearly emerged out of the range of internal variability compared to 1850-1900. Heat extremes have increased while cold extremes have decreased, and these trends will continue over the coming decades“, it said, talking about the Indian Subcontinent. “Average and heavy precipitation will also increase over much of Asia, it added.

India will experience an intensification of the water cycle which will affect rainfall patterns as well as increased monsoon precipitation. “In the Indian Ocean, the sea temperature is heating at a higher rate than other areas, and therefore may influence other regions. The Southwest Monsoon has declined over the past few decades because of the increase of aerosols, but once this reduces, we will experience heavy monsoon rainfall,” IITM’s Dr. Swapna Panickal, an author of the report, said.

In another worrying warning sign, the report has raised concerns over India’s Himalayan Range.

“During the 21st century, snow-covered areas and snow volumes will decrease in most of the Hindu-Kush Himalayan and snowline elevations will rise and glacier volumes will decline. A general wetting across the whole Tibetan Plateau and the Himalaya is projected, with increases in heavy precipitation in the 21st century”.

Over the past few months, India has seen numerous floods and landslides in the Himachal Pradesh and Uttrakhand region owing to heavy rainfalls in the area.

Humans are to blame.

In its starkest terms ever, the UN Climate Report has asserted that humans are to be held accountable for climate change. “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land”, reads the first line of the report summary. “There is no uncertainty language in this sentence because there is no uncertainty that global warming is caused by human activity and the burning of fossil fuels,” said IPCC co-author Friederike Otto, a climatologist at University of Oxford.

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