20.03.2023
Earth observation supports latest UN climate report
The final instalment of the sixth assessment report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been released today. The report warns that the planet has already warmed 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels, resulting in more frequent and intense extreme weather events that are causing increasingly dangerous impacts on nature and people in every region of the world.
The report includes a greater contribution of Earth observation data than its previous iterations in providing the physical evidence of Earth’s changing climate system – from sea-level rise, growing greenhouse-gas emissions and melting sea ice.
The Synthesis Report draws together the key findings of six reports released during its Sixth Assessment Cycle and provides a comprehensive review of global knowledge of the climate.
Previous reports highlighted the challenge to keep warming to 1.5°C, yet five years later, the challenge has become even greater owing to increasing greenhouse-gas emissions. The current pace and scale of what has been done, as well as current plans, are insufficient to tackle climate change.
More frequent and more intense extreme weather events are having increasingly dangerous effects on nature and on people in every region of the world. More heatwaves, heavier rainfall and other weather extremes further increase risks to human health and ecosystems. To avoid the worst consequences, the global community has been called upon to cut emissions by almost half by 2030.