'Damning Indictment' — UN Agency Issues Dire Climate Warning

A new IPCC report says the climate emergency is a grave and growing threat to humanity.

Feb 28

Photo by Gerard Bottino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is unforgiving:

The world faces unavoidable multiple climate hazards over the next two decades with global warming of 1.5°C (2.7°F). Even temporarily exceeding this warming level will result in additional severe impacts, some of which will be irreversible.
Increased heatwaves, droughts and floods are already exceeding plants’ and animals’ tolerance thresholds, driving mass mortalities in species such as trees and corals. These weather extremes are occurring simultaneously, causing cascading impacts that are increasingly difficult to manage.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the report “an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.” The New York Times notes that the IPCC warns of “dislocation on a global scale.”

The report also carries a stark warning: If temperatures keep rising, many parts of the world could soon face limits in how much they can adapt to a changing environment. If nations don’t act quickly to slash fossil fuel emissions and halt global warming, more and more people will suffer unavoidable loss or be forced to flee their homes.

As I wrote recently, the stark reality is that neither ruling capitalist party is serious about addressing the climate emergency, and humanity will pay an unimaginable price. We already know that the GOP is the party of pollution and climate denial. But Democrats are competing for that title:

New federal data shows the Biden administration approved 3,557 permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in its first year, far outpacing the Trump administration’s first-year total of 2,658. In California, the Biden administration approved 187 permits — more than twice the 71 drilling permits Trump approved in that state in his first year.

And there’s this:

When President Biden proposed his first budget last spring, it zeroed out tens of billions of dollars in oil and gas subsidies. Since then, the industry successfully lobbied to keep most of them.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg summed up the global response to the climate emergency as “blah, blah, blah.” She’s absolutely right. If we don’t move beyond platitudes and empty gestures, time will run out.