Humans are “unequivocally” responsible for irreversible climate change

Landmark IPCC report reveals the dire state of climate change, and the devastating failure for governments to act.

Last night AEST, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released their long-awaited report on the climate crisis.

It recruited 234 leading scientists from more than 60 countries, and reviewed over 14,000 papers on the climate.

It is part of a series of reports the IPCC publishes around every seven years, the last having been published in 2013.

Yesterday’s report also comes ahead of the major UN Climate Change Conference, which will be held from October 31 to November 12.

The IPCC report leaves no more room for speculation, asserting that humans are “unequivocally” responsible for the driving forces behind the rise in Earth’s temperatures.

“Observed increases in well-mixed greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations since around 1750 are unequivocally caused by human activities“, it reads.

It revealed unprecedented highs in the global surface temperature, having risen 1.09 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times.

Although it recognises natural changes in the climate, it attributed 98.17 per cent of the rise in temperature to greenhouse gasses.

“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land“, the report says.

“Human-induced greenhouse gas forcing is the main driver of the observed changes in hot and cold extremes on the global scale (virtually certain)“, it specifies.

The good news: pic.twitter.com/FA81eLs3oI

— Piers Forster (@piersforster) August 9, 2021

Current concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) are the highest in at least 2 million years.

Moreover, concentrations of CO₂ are rising at an unmatched speed, at least ten times faster than any time in the past 800,000 years, and at least 4-5 times faster than any other in the past 56 million years.

Threats of ocean warming were also examined thoroughly in the report.

Marine heatwaves, which often have devastating effects on marine life, were shown to have doubled in frequency since the 1980s.

It further predicted that sea ice will be non-existent, for the first time, by 2050:

“The Arctic Ocean will likely become practically sea ice–free during the seasonal sea ice minimum for the first time before 2050 in all considered SSP scenarios“.

Already, between 1992-2020, the report recorded that the Greenland Ice Sheet had an “irreversible” loss of 4890 gigatonne mass, equivalent to 13.5 mm in global mean sea level rise.

With a further 6200 gigatonne mass lost from glaciers, and 2680 gigatonne mass lost from the Antarctic Ice Sheet, “[g]lobal mean sea level (GMSL) rose faster in the 20th century than in any prior century over the last 33 three millennia (high confidence)”, the report said.

These alarming findings are only some, among many others, of the IPCC report.

Australia has not yet implemented a climate policy that effectively addresses these threats to our environment.

In 2015, the Government’s main climate change advisory body suggested reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 46-65 per cent below 2005 levels, by 2030.

However, PM Scott Morrison sticks to a 26-28 per cent target. Comparatively, US President Joe Biden has pledged a target of 50-52 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

Please read the IPCC report here.

UN Sec-Gen says IPCC report “must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet”

Meanwhile Australian Government seeking to “unlock” fracking in NT, one of world’s largest potential sources of GHG, could increase Australia’s emissions by over 7% pic.twitter.com/tVz4GcYHr4

— Mark Ogge (@MarkOgge) August 9, 2021

In the aftermath of the report today, Extinction Rebellion protesters sprayed the message “climate duty of care” on the concrete outside Parliament House.