U.N. report: 'Irreversible' global warming may be on the horizon

Soaring greenhouse gas emissions may be rising so swiftly that there will be no stopping their impact on global climate change, according to an early draft of a forthcoming United Nations report.

The report combines and reiterates the stark findings of three previous U.N. studies, namely that humans are almost certainly causing climate change, and that the effects could be imminent and disastrous. But the report uses "blunter, more forceful language" than its predecessors, according to The New York Times, which obtained a leaked copy.

Humans are "extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century," the report says. "The risk of abrupt and irreversible change increases as the magnitude of the warming increases."

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The U.N. sent the report to member nations for review on Monday, and a final draft is expected to be released in November.