New Climate Report Warns That the Planet Is Headed Toward Dangerous 2.6°C Global Warming

After having a look at the data from the last few years, we can clearly see that the temperatures across the world have been constantly rising, driven mainly by the increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This major shift has also made harmful natural phenomena like heatwaves, storms, and droughts more intense and frequent. Recently, a new global report has also warned that the world is now moving dangerously close to a future defined by extreme heat. It has placed the planet on course for a 2.6°C temperature rise. Experts believe that this level of global warming might trigger catastrophic consequences.

The CEO of Climate Analytics, Bill Hare, spoke of this and said, “A world at 2.6°C temperature rise means global disaster.” As reported by The Guardian, he added, “That all means the end of agriculture in the UK and across Europe, drought and monsoon failure in Asia and Africa, lethal heat and humidity. This is not a good place to be. You want to stay away from that.” Reports claim that since the Industrial Revolution, Earth has already warmed by around 1.3°C, mainly due to large-scale deforestation and increased use of coal, oil, and gas.

This has fueled more intense wildfires and a growing list of other climate-related disasters. The situation is even more concerning because even with new climate promises, governments have made zero progress in stopping global warming for the fourth year in a row. If the recent prediction is true, the temperature rise would break the Paris Agreement limits, too. It can also lead to dangerous, irreversible changes — like major ice sheets melting and causing a huge sea level rise that could drown many cities, as reported by CNN.

The Paris Agreement requires countries to regularly update their plans to reduce emissions, but only around 100 nations have submitted theirs so far. Daniel Swain, a climate scientist, spoke of the warmer future and said, “It’s a world where we lose almost all of the mountain glaciers, and we start to see massive destabilization of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. And that’s just a short list.” Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore also claimed recently that letting global warming carry on, without any positive changes in sight, is nothing short of insane. He questioned, “How long are we going to stand by and keep turning the thermostat up so that these sorts of events get even worse?”

Rapidly melting glaciers. (Representative Image Source: Getty Images | Paul Souders)

He added, “We need to adapt as well as mitigate, but we also need to be realistic that if we allow this insanity to continue, to use the sky as an open sewer, that some things will be very difficult to adapt to.” Meanwhile, another report claims that the fossil fuel emissions will rise about 1% this year, a record high, but the good news is that the speed of that rise has slowed down. Stressing this, Professor Corinne Le Quéré from the University of East Anglia said that while emissions aren't in control yet, they have slowed down due to the rise in use of renewable energy.

More on Green Matters

Here's How Deforestation Disrupts the Natural Cycle of Carbon

Is Reversing Deforestation Possible? Behind the Efforts to Fix What We've Damaged

Scientists Found an Unlikely Culprit Driving Catastrophic Deforestation in Chile's Easter Islands