Rabat – The UN climate science advisory panel’s latest draft report on climate change is to date the most comprehensive report on the impending climate crisis’ effect on the world at large.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will publish the draft report next year. According to AFP, who have had exclusive access to the monumental, 4,000-page long document, the study warns that unless warming is quickly stopped, some of the damage done to the world may be irreversible.
The report presents climate change as a series of “systematic and cascading risks” that will influence all aspects of future development, disproportionately affecting the world’s most vulnerable communities. It suggests that crop production and quality have already dropped, which is increasingly problematic in African and Central American countries, which have a growing population to feed.
The document also indicates that despite growing socioeconomic development, by 2050 there will be nearly 10 million more children that will have to go undernourished, yet again inviting a lifetime of health complications for the world’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged populations.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>I’m stubbornly optimistic when it comes to us meeting the climate challenge before us. <br>But this account of the latest United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) draft report on climate change is challenging that stubborn optimism. <a href=”https://t.co/OgdiY9ce4U”>https://t.co/OgdiY9ce4U</a></p>— Brad Pettitt (@bradpettitt) <a href=”https://twitter.com/bradpettitt/status/1407700123698614275?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>June 23, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
Another challenge the world will face will be the loss of productivity in the face of a climate crisis, warns the report. Rising temperatures will reduce humanity’s capability to get work done. The study suggests that much of South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Latin America could lose up to 250 working days a year by 2100.
By 2080, extreme heatwaves will be affecting hundreds of millions of people across sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia, potentially reaching more than 30 days of deadly heat each year.
On the other hand, future floods have the potential to displace up to 2.7 million people annually in Africa. If emission reduction goals are not met by 2050, over 85 million people could be displaced from their homes in sub-Saharan Africa.
The report found that the current extinction rates are over 1,000 times higher than 70 years ago and that plenty of today’s ecosystems are already “near or beyond” their adaptability limits in an exponentially warming world.
Ultimately, warns the report, “the worst is yet to come.”
