Anew UN report will set out a stark message on the state of the climate crisis, raising pressure on governments meeting for the crucial Cop26 talks in the autumn.
The report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due to be published on 9am on Monday, is the first part of a review of current scientific knowledge about how the world is warming due to human activity.
It is the first such global assessment since 2013, when scientists found that global warming was “unequivocal” and human influence on the climate was clear, with the majority of warming since the 1950s extremely likely to be down to human activity.
The message in the latest report is expected to be even stronger, with warnings of how soon global temperatures could rise 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – a limit that countries have pledged to try to avoid breaching because of the dangerous consequences for humanity.
Drawing on more than 14,000 scientific papers, the review is set to provide the latest knowledge on past and potential future warming, how humans are changing the climate and how that is increasing extreme weather events and driving sea-level rises.
A summary report is being published after being approved in a process involving scientists and representatives of 195 governments that has taken place online over the last two weeks.
That means governments have signed off on the findings – and pressure will be on them to take more action at global climate talks known as Cop26 which are being held in Glasgow in November.
