‘A code red for humanity’: Landmark climate report says global warming limit to be hit within 20 years
Heatwaves, flooding and droughts will be more frequent and more intense as the world is set to hit the 1.5C global warming limit in the next 20 years, a landmark United Nations review has predicted.
The milestone scientific assessment says the rate of warming in the last 2,000 years has been “unprecedented” and it was “unequivocal” that human influence is already responsible for 1.1C of global warming since 1850.
Every inhabited region on Earth is already impacted by climate change and the report found that the accepted 1.5C limit will be met even in the best case scenario, causing more regular extreme weather events.
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, more than 190 governments agreed the world should limit global warming to 2C or ideally 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Hot extremes are taking hold around the world. Pic: IPCC
The report warns that even in the best case scenarios, some changes are already locked in to our systems, including sea level rise. This will never be reversed, not even under the lowest scenario.
The language in the review is bolder than the last equivalent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s climate science body, which in 2013 called human influence on the climate system “clear”.
The “good news” in the report, said Dr Joeri Rogelj, climate change lecturer at Imperial College London, was that if the world did achieve net zero by 2050, there was a “significant chance” that we eventually stabilise below 1.5C.
Lead author Dr Tamsin Edwards told Sky News: “That is something people may see as optimistic, but we’re not there, and we are on higher emissions pathways at the moment that would lead to much greater climate change.”
Unless there are “immediate, rapid and large scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions”, the 1.5C target will be beyond reach, she added.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the study made for “sobering reading” and that the next decade would be “pivotal to securing the future of our planet”.
This is the first time the influential group of scientists could say climate change is already impacting every single region on the planet.
This “major new development” is thanks to advances in attribution science – which assesses human influence on weather – said a report author Dr Friederike Otto, associate climate professor at Oxford University.
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Labour’s Ed Miliband said the report “confirms in prose” what recent fires and floods had shown in picture: that “climate breakdown has already begun… and that extraordinary changes to our planet – from heavier rains and ocean acidification to glacier melt to sea-level rise – are already baked in for centuries to come”.
“Thanks to reports like this, the paths of our different futures are now mapped and modelled in front of us; and we still have a choice about the path to which we will commit ourselves and future generations,” the shadow business secretary said.
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The IPCC investigated five future scenarios based on how much carbon dioxide the world continues to emit and what we do to compensate.
They found that even under the most optimistic pathway, which assumes “very low” emissions and achieving net zero around 2050, the world will hit 1.5 degrees in the next 20 years – though it could level off at 1.4C towards the end of the century.
In a briefing, a group of eight of the lead authors were at pains to stress that the goal of limiting warming to 1.5C was not a “cliff edge”.
“The consequences get worse and worse and worse as we get warmer and warmer,” said Ed Hawkins, climate science professor at Reading University. “And so every tonne of CO2 matters and every bit of warming matters.”
As in previous years, the report will likely set the scene for this year’s annual UN climate change negotiations, COP26, in Glasgow.
Many countries including the UK have pledged by 2050 to reach net zero – which means reducing emissions as much as possible and offsetting the rest – but have been criticised for failing to match this rhetoric with action.
Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist Dr Doug Parr said this generation of world leaders was the “last that can afford to ignore” the “gravity of the climate crisis”.
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Cars float away in more Belgium flooding
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Dr Parr said the increased “frequency, scale and intensity of climate disasters that have scorched and flooded many parts of the world in recent months is the result of past inaction”.
“We need concrete policies to cut carbon emissions as fast as possible, phase out fossil fuels, transform our food system and deliver more cash to the countries worst hit by the climate crisis.”
A map shows how human influence is influencing rainfall and precipitation. Pic: IPCC
The report cautioned 2C warming would likely breach extreme heat thresholds for agriculture and health.
The assessment found carbon removal could reverse some of the increase in global temperatures – although a lot of this technology is unproven to work at scale, says Friends of the Earth.
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Sky News has launched the first daily prime time news show dedicated to climate change.
The Daily Climate Show is broadcast at 6.30pm and 9.30pm Monday to Friday on Sky News, the Sky News website and app, on YouTube and Twitter.
Hosted by Anna Jones, it follows Sky News correspondents as they investigate how global warming is changing our landscape and how we all live our lives.
The show also highlights solutions to the crisis and how small changes can make a big difference.
The bodies of three Israeli hostage taken by Hamas have been recovered in Gaza.
The remains were discovered in an overnight operation carried out by Israel’s military and intelligence agency Shin Bet, said chief military spokesman Daniel Hagari.
Itzhak Gelerenter, 56, Amit Buskila, 28, and Shani Louk, 22, were killed at the Nova music festival on 7 October, with their bodies then taken into Gaza by Hamas militants.
Ms Louk’s body was seen face-down in a pick-up truck travelling through Gaza in a video that was shared widely on social media after the hostages were taken.
Israel-Gaza war latest updates
Shani Louk
Itzhak Gelerenter
Amit Buskila
“They were celebrating life in the Nova music festival and they were murdered by Hamas,” said Mr Hagari.
He said their families have been notified.
“Our hearts go out to them, to the families at this difficult time. We will leave no stone unturned, we will do everything in our power to find our hostages and bring them home.”
The military did not give immediate details on where their bodies were found.
Ms Louk’s father has said the return of his daughter’s body to her family has been a form of closure.
Nissim Louk told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz his daughter “radiated light, to her and those who surrounded her, and in her death she still does”.
He added: “She is a symbol of the people of Israel, between light and darkness. Her inner and outer beauty that shone for all the world to see is a special one.”
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In November, the brother of Ms Louk told Sky News of their last phone call as his sister tried to escape Hamas.
Speaking about the video that was circulated online after she was taken, Amit Louk said: “I never thought I was going to be in contact with this type of video, seeing my sister in that brutal position.
“And just in that moment, the whole family just crashed.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the deaths “heartbreaking”, saying: “We will return all of our hostages, both the living and the dead.”
Meanwhile, Professor Hagai Levine, a member of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, has said the recovery of the bodies is a “painful reminder” of those who are still in captivity.
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“We do not lose hope. We are preparing for the return of the hostages that are alive,” he added.
Israel has been operating in the Gaza Strip’s southern city of Rafah, where it says it has intelligence that hostages are being held.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducted around 250 others in the 7 October attack.
Around half of those have since been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a ceasefire in November.
Israel says around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza since the attack has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
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Mr Netanyahu has vowed to both eliminate Hamas and bring all the hostages back.
He faces pressure to resign, and the US has threatened to scale back its support over the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Israelis are divided into two main camps: those who want the government to put the war on hold and free the hostages, and others who think the hostages are an unfortunate price to pay for eradicating Hamas.
World
Slovakia PM shooting: Friend of suspect recalls laughing with him just days before assassination attempt
Mile L’Udovit is leaning on the front door of his apartment block when we meet, just as he has done so often since moving in four decades ago.
He was one of the original tenants of the tatty building and so was his dear friend Juraj Cintula – the man charged with trying to kill Slovakia’s prime minister.
Mile is at once shocked, bemused, appalled and bewildered.
“He’s a good friend,” he tells me. Both men are 71 years old and talked often. “He was a decent, polite man. A good worker. His wife is a professor and his kids were okay. He had a good reputation. Everything was okay.
“Nobody expected something like this to happen. No one could imagine it. That’s the worst thing about it.
“I spoke to him on Monday and we were having a laugh, like neighbours do. It’s so unpleasant.”
Suspect Juraj Cintula is the author of several poetry collections. Pic: ENEX
The apartment block where L’Udovit and Cintula have lived for decades. Pic: AP Photo/Denes Erdos
He shakes his head and gestures up to Cintula’s apartment on the top of the building. “He will either die or get a life sentence. It’s going to be so hard for his family.”
Cintula has not yet been officially identified as the suspect, but it’s common knowledge in Slovakia.
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Video shows moment Slovak PM was shot
Armed police even brought him back to the apartment, dressed in a bulletproof jacket and helmet, to help gather evidence. So why, I ask Mile, did his old friend allegedly try to kill Robert Fico?
“You know, I can’t really say,” he replies thoughtfully. “We took politics as something to laugh at. But we kept our own opinions – he had his, I had mine.
“He was opposed to certain acts of the government and his opinions were quite different. But what was in his mind? Really, nobody knows.”
World
Slovakia’s PM Robert Fico has second surgery in two days after assassination attempt leaves him in ‘very serious’ condition
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico has had a second surgery in two days after being shot multiple times in Europe’s first assassination attempt in more than 20 years.
The 59-year-old was shot multiple times while greeting supporters in the former mining town of Handlova on Wednesday. A man has been arrested over the shooting.
Mr Fico was left with life-threatening injuries, and while his condition improved the president-elect of Slovakia said he escaped death “by just a hair”.
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He is currently recovering at the University FD Roosevelt Hospital in Banska Bystrica, and underwent a second surgery to remove dead tissue inside of his body.
Hospital director Miriam Lapunikova said he underwent a CT scan and is currently awake and stable in an intensive care unit, but added his condition is still “very serious”.
Miriam Lapunikova said Robert Fico underwent a second surgery to remove dead tissue on Friday. Pic: AP
Deputy prime minister Robert Kaliniak also told reporters: “I think it will take several more days until we will definitely know the direction of the further development.”
While Mr Fico continued to recover from the attack – the first assassination attempt of a European political leader for more than 20 years – police brought the suspect to his home while they searched it.
Markiza, a Slovakian television station, showed footage of the suspect accompanied by police in the town of Levice and reported police had seized a computer and some documents.
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Slovak PM shooting suspect’s home raided
He was then escorted out and back into the police car.
The suspect was previously named as 71-year-old Juraj Cintula. He is said to be a writer and poet.
President-elect Peter Pellegrini said on Thursday that the prime minister is living “the worst hours and days of his life” after the shooting.
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If the “gunshot wounds were just a few millimetres either side, we would be talking about him as the late prime minister”, he said.
Mr Fico has long been a divisive figure. His return to power last year on a pro-Russian, anti-American ticket led to worries among fellow EU and NATO members that he would turn his country further away from the Western mainstream.
Under his stewardship, the government has halted arms deliveries to Ukraine, and his opponents worry he will lead Slovakia in the footsteps of Viktor Orban’s Hungary.
Thousands have repeatedly rallied in the capital and across Slovakia to protest against Mr Fico’s policies.
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