Current Affairs 2022: UN Report on Climate Change 2022

By Abhishek Desai

UN report suggests ways to limit global warming and warns countries to act urgently or face repercussions.

The United Nations issued its latest report on the topic “Climate Change” on February 28, 2022. Putting forth a grim reminder of “act now or suffer later”, the UN climate panel warned everyone about the drastic climatic changes already being witnessed worldwide, while humans are yet to be ready to even embrace those changes. Explicitly stating that about half of the world is already endangered due to the rising adverse climate impacts, the report urges the need to implement large-scale significant actions. Some of these actions include ensuring almost a third of the global land area is well-conserved for long-term stable food and water supplies, and effective planning for people residing in the coastal cities to protect them from the rising sea levels and storms.

UN Report Calls for Adaptation

This UN report is the most recent one in a series by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which attributes the latest worldwide agreement on climate science. While making the report public, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, via a video address, said that adaptations lead to saving lives. He further stated that as the climate impact continues to deteriorate, bolstering investments remains the sole key to future existence. And that any delay or lapse will only lead to death and destruction. On almost all fronts, this report clarifies that climate change is affecting the earth at a pace more rapid than what even some renowned scientists and climate experts had forecasted not too long ago. 
Guterres further added that rampant pollution caused by carbon is compelling the world’s most susceptible to march on the path of ruins. The first thing to be aimed for is immediate mitigation of these worsening climatic patterns. Governments all over the world not only need to limit their emissions as much as possible, but also adapt to the environs of a warmer planet. 

Restrict Global Warming

The release of the report, just three months post the global leaders’ meet at a climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, underlines the dire need to restrict global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius of the temperatures in the pre-industrial times. The inability to reach this threshold or crossing it will eventually lead to an irreversible catastrophe. Having heated by 1.5 degrees Celsius already, the earth is prone to breach the 1.5 mark within the next twenty years. Even though holding on the global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius won’t really prevent the loss of nature, human lives, and economies at large, it would at least substantially mitigate them. 

The UN suggests Inclusivity is the Key

The report also urges everybody to work together in limiting the eventual damage, by ensuring that the society is inclusive enough to deal with this together in full coordination. The solutions and plans emerging need to also incorporate the indigenous communities, minorities, and the backward sections of the society as they shall be the most vulnerable. For instance, a lack of robust economic development in Africa would result in about 40 million more people plunging into extreme poverty by 2030. However, the authors of the report issued a grim reminder that time is indeed running out quickly for the large-scale changes to be implemented. 

The UN warns 'Act Now, or Suffer Later'

The choices made in the upcoming decade will serve as the precedent for the imminent climate path. Hans-Otto Portner, co-chairman of the IPCC panel, who designed the UN report was heard stating that there is just a brief but rapidly closing timeframe left to ascertain our planet provides us a sustainable and comforting future. Simply put, either we can plan and implement the necessary changes to tackle the climate change by ourselves today or witness them being mercilessly forced upon us by nature tomorrow.               

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