Avoiding global climate chaos will require a transformation of society and the world economy that is “unprecedented in scale,” the UN said Monday in a landmark report, warning that time is running out to avoid disaster.
“Limiting global warming to 1.5C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society,” the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in a statement.
To have at least a 50/50 chance of staying under the 1.5C cap without overshooting the mark, the world must, by 2050, become “carbon neutral,” according to the report.
“That means every tonne of CO2 we put into the atmosphere will have to be balanced by a tonne of CO2 taken out,” said lead coordinating author Myles Allen, head of the University of Oxford’s Climate Research Programme.
