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The scientists who wrote the report are very concerned and speak of a “red code” for humanity. Humans attacked and changed the environment at an “unprecedented rate”. In the absence of rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the Earth is increasingly at risk of catastrophic disasters. The Climate Commission sees the only uncertainty as to whether humanity will be able to muster the will and ability to avoid a darker future.
No doubt
The Spanish minister stressed that the IPCC document “leaves no doubt” about the acceleration of climate change, and stated in this regard that “the time for action and action is now.”
“It is necessary to do this because of its impact on a global scale, but it is also necessary to do it with the utmost precision in terms of regional scale.”
In this sense, the Minister expressed the need to implement corrective measures and avoid delaying them until “the horizon of 2050 is no longer, nor even the horizon of 2030”.
The role of scientific evidence
Ribera also stressed the role that scientific evidence must play as an engine of change to “promote the transformation of our development model and economic system” to address climate change. This requires “deep and very significant changes” to stay at “reasonable risk levels”.
The report expects temperatures to rise by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius and even 2 degrees Celsius unless the international community takes measures to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Spanish contribution to the climate report
Ribera also highlighted Spain’s contribution to the report. It contains an interactive atlas (accessed via this link) that allows examination of some of the report’s findings on a regional scale. The team that developed this atlas was led by Spanish scientist Jose Manuel Gutierrez, of the Instituto Física de Cantabria and of the Supreme Council for Scientific Research (CSIC).
The report was co-authored by three other Spanish researchers: Francisco Doblas Reyes (Barcelona Supercomputing Center), Sergio Faria (Basque Center for Climate Change), and Sergio Vicente Serrano (Pyrenees Institute for the Environment).
The climate report was presented in the run-up to the main United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow, which begins at the end of October. World leaders must make decisions there at least to slow the inevitable global warming.
Problems all over the world due to severe weather
Scientists’ urgent warning comes at a time when extreme weather is a problem in many parts of the planet. Such as heat records in America, wildfires in Canada and the United States, fires in Siberia, and fires in southeastern Europe. According to the authors of the report, the intense fires that ravage both hemispheres in the summer would be almost impossible in a world untouched by human activities.
