‘Climate crisis to hit sooner than feared’

Climate change will fundamentally reshape life on Earth in the coming decades, even if humans can tame planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, according to a landmark draft report from the UN’s climate science advisers obtained by AFP .

Earlier models predicted that we were not likely to see Earth-altering climate change before 2100. But the UN draft report says that prolonged warming even beyond the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius could produce “progressively serious, centuries’ long and, in some cases, irreversible consequences”.

Dangerous thresholds are closer than once thought, and dire consequences stemming from decades of carbon pollution are unavoidable in the short term.