Capacities and Vulnerabilities of Human Societies to Adapt to Climate Change Highlighted in IPCC Report
A report was released this week from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a collective of 270 authors from 67 countries that annually assess the impacts of climate change on ecosystems and human communities.
The report — which is nearly 3,700 pages and 18 chapters — builds on five prior assessment reports and three special reports from the working groups to understand climate change impacts and risks, as well as adaption when it comes to unfolding global trends like biodiversity loss, unsustainable consumption of natural resources and human demographic shifts.
The main takeaway from the report: climate change is outpacing our ability to adapt to it.
The report shows that currently half of the world’s population is threatened by water shortages, fire-prone areas have doubled, crop yields are lower, marine habitats less friendly to life and about 14% of animal species are at high risk of extinction.
“This forces us to reckon with a stark reality: the crisis is here, and it is all around us… Without rapid decarbonization of the global economy, we will see inland wells dry up, while coastal cities decay into the sea. Wildlife will die off in droves, jobs will disappear overnight and the resources we require to survive will grow scarce. Famine, conflict, and zoonotic disease will ravage bodies and trauma will torment minds,” said Dr. M. Sanjayan, CEO of Conservation International, in a recent statement regarding the report.
According to the report, protecting nature will be a key solution in bolstering the resilience of ecosystems and communities.
Social justice and biodiversity conservation methods, like deforestation or restricting wildlife trade, will help better secure a healthy future for the planet.
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