Here's what five authors of the latest IPCC report are saying about its importance. 'People and ecosystems are already reaching limits'
, the first instalment focused on recent climate science, whereas the latest one looks at the impacts of climate change on people and ecosystems. It will be followed in early April by a third instalment that evaluates humanity’s options for battling climate change, including ways of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. This is the sixth such assessment from the IPCC in a little over three decades, and the warnings have only become more dire.
• If global temperatures rise by more than 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, some environmental changes could become irreversible, depending on the magnitude and duration of the ‘overshoot’ beyond this threshold. In forests and Arctic permafrost zones that act as carbon dioxide reservoirs, for instance, extreme global warming could lead to the release of excess carbon emissions, which would in turn drive further warming — a self-perpetuating cycle.
As a scientist from the Bahamas, one of the low-lying coastal countries that are at high risk from climate change, I hope that this report provides an impetus for policymakers to limit warming to 1.5 °C, urgently ramp up adaptation and address loss and damage.at the University of the Valley of Guatemala in Guatemala City.
Sarah Cooley, director of climate science at the Ocean Conservancy, a conservation group based in Washington DC.