Humanity can still limit global warming to 1.5°C this century. But political action will determine whether it actually does. Conflating the two questions amounts to dangerous, misplaced punditry.
Prominent academics, including a former IPCC chair, round on governments worldwide for using the concept of net zero emissions to ‘greenwash’ their lack of commitment to solving global warming.
Australia must treble its emissions reduction targets and reach net-zero emissions by 2035. Without this and other radical global action, the chance to hold warming to well below 2°C will pass us by.
The WHO has been criticised for being slow to recognise the scale of the COVID-9 pandemic. We suggest a new protocol on infectious diseases to help with faster data collection and more open sharing.
For decades Australian scientists have, clearly and respectfully, warned about the risks to Australia of a rapidly heating climate. After this season’s fires, perhaps it’s time to listen.
Promising to plant 100m trees a year is one thing; making them grow can be quite another.
Indonesia will face new challenges as current released IPCC reported states that oceans and cryosphere are melting in accelerated rate.
NASA/Goddard/Maria-José Viñas
The climate emergency requires the full mobilisation of scientific institutions, but the persistent compartmentalization between disciplines and difficulties of adaptation hinder their action.
Low lying regions could be devastated by sea level rise this century.
Zita Sebesvari/UNU-EHS
While a new report from the IPCC highlights the need for urgent climate change action, Morrison used his address to the UN to strongly defend the government’s performance on climate change.
The IPCC report provides fresh details on scope of the effects of climate change.
John B. Weller
A new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report makes clear human-induced climate change threatens the health and function of the ocean and cryosphere - the frozen regions of the Earth.
Rivers of melted ice on a Western Greenland ice sheet drain into the ocean beneath the ice.
Photo via Caspar Haarløv/AP