Save mother nature

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change),the UN body for formulating expert advice on climate changes for governments around the globe, has released a report on Sunday about the dangers of not doing enough to curb emissions of greenhouse gases.

The ‘synthetic report’, which is the most important assessment on global warming, gives a ‘final warning’ about the catastrophic effects of climate changes that would inflict a ‘severe, widespread and irreversible’ impact on people and the natural world. The report, the first of its kind since 2007, was published in Copenhagen, after a week of intense debate between scientists and government officials. It is the work of thousands of scientists to bring together all aspects of tackling climate change and for the first time states that it is economically affordable. The report says that it was technically and economically possible to still keep within the target of no more than a 2C increase in global average temperatures. It stated that the climate change was being registered around the world and the warming of climate system was unequivocal.

Ban Ki Moon called the report release a ‘historic’ launch urging the leaders to act immediately for a better and sustainable future. The apparent changes have increased the dangers of severe heat waves and other extreme weather. According to the report, the carbon emissions mainly from burning coal, oil and gas, are currently rising to record levels and will have to be rapidly reduced. Most of the world's electricity could be and must be produced from low-carbon sources by 2050. The report said that fossil fuels like petrol and diesel have to abandoned as should be the use of coal and that alternative energy sources should be promoted. The report also said that the greenhouse gases released dangerously increased the atmospheric temperature, now at its peak in 8 lakh years. An increase in draughts and floods and a rise in sea levels would be the result of such changes. This would in turn violently affect the flora, fauna and the natural resources aggravating food shortages, the struggles for survival, hunger and subsequent displacements of people.

The report comes at a crucial time for international action on climate change, with the deadline for a global deal just over a year away. Leaders of 120 countries met at the UN in New York to address the potential threats in September and thousands took to the streets demanding action. R. K. Pachauri, Chair of the IPCC, called for the urgent need to decide on the required steps which if implemented would allow for economic and human development. A new global treaty on climate would be formed by 2015 in Paris in the presence of UN to tackle the risks of climate change. The discourses and debates that have taken place before on the matter have been bootless. A collective effort of all the world nations is necessary to cut down the rate of polluted gases in the atmosphere to at least 40 – 70 percent. Global poverty could only be reduced by halting global warming, says the report. Severe and prompt action by the nations as a whole is essential to overcome the disastrous changes which otherwise would be affecting humanity much more than could be imagined.