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The ‘bleak’ outlook on climate change

A dried-out lake in India: Sign of things to come? (Getty, Attila Krasznahorkay, Newscom)

The world has acted so slowly to combat global warming that the eventual temperature increase will be double what has been deemed safe. That’s the conclusion of a new United Nations report, whose authors say the future is “bleak” unless there are rapid, unprecedented cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, reports The Washington Post. The latest annual Emissions Gap Report found that global temperatures are on track to rise by up to 5.8 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100—nearly twice the maximum increase pledged by world leaders in the 2016 Paris Agreement. If temperatures continue to climb, scientists say, the world will experience a cascade of disastrous consequences. Coral reefs will die in increasingly acidic oceans. Many coastal cities will be frequently flooded by rising seas. And intense heat could make parts of the world unlivable. To meet the Paris Agreement’s ambitious target, keeping temperatures from rising more than 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels, global emissions will have to fall 7.6 percent a year over the next decade. That would require countries to raise their emissions-reduction targets fivefold—not likely, given that global emissions have risen about 1.5 percent a year for the past decade. U.S. carbon dioxide emissions jumped 3.4 percent last year. “Our collective failure to act early and hard on climate change means we now must deliver deep cuts to emissions,” says Inger Andersen, head of the U.N. Environment Program. “We need to catch up on the years in which we procrastinated.” ■

December 6, 2019 THE WEEK
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