[An Nahar] A major new United Nations...the Oyster Bay money pit...
report being released Monday is expected to provide a sobering reminder that time is running out if humanity wants to avoid passing a dangerous global warming threshold.
That's some kinda coincidence, coming on the five year anniversary of the announcement that it would only be five years until climate change kills us all.
The report by hundreds of the world's top scientists is the capstone on a series that summarizes the research on global warming compiled since the Gay Paree climate accord was agreed in 2015.
It was approved by countries at the end of a week-long meeting of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in the Swiss town of Interlaken, meaning governments have accepted its findings as authoritative advice on which to base their actions.
At the start of the meeting U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres
...Portuguese politician and diplomat, ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Previously, he was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees between 2005 and 2015. He was the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002 and was the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party from 1992 to 2002. He served as President of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005. In both a 2012 and 2014 poll, the Portuguese public ranked him as the best Prime Minister of the previous 30 years...warned delegates that the planet is " nearing the point of no return " and they risk missing the internationally agreed limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) of global warming since pre-industrial times.
That's because global emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases keep increasing — mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and intensive agriculture — when in fact they need to decline quickly.
Governments agreed in Gay Paree almost eight years ago to try to limit temperature rise to 1.5 C or at least keep it well below 2 C (3.6 F). Since then scientists have increasingly argued that any warming beyond the lower threshold would put humanity at dire risk.