Nearly 200 nations kick off a virtual UN meeting Monday to finalise what is sure to be a harrowing catalogue of climate change impacts — past, present and future.
Species extinction, ecosystem collapse, mosquito-borne disease, deadly heat, water shortages, and reduced crop yields are already measurably worse due to global heating.
Just in the last year, the world has seen a cascade of unprecedented floods, heatwaves and wildfires across four continents.
All these impacts will accelerate in the coming decades even if the carbon pollution driving climate change is rapidly brought to heel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is likely to warn.
A crucial, 40-page Summary for Policymakers — distilling underlying chapters totalling thousands of pages, and reviewed line-by-line — is to be made public on February 28.
