UN report finds extreme flooding, wildfires and heatwaves from climate change already hitting the US
US President Joe Biden has sounded the alarm on climate change following the release of a bombshell United Nations dubbed a 'a code red for humanity.' 'We can't wait to tackle the climate crisis. The signs are unmistakable. The science is undeniable. And the cost of inaction keeps mounting,' Biden said in a statement Monday, as he urged the US and world nations to swiftly limit greenhouses gasses. The Earth is likely to warm by 2.7F within the next 20 years a decade earlier than previously expected and heatwaves, flooding and droughts will become more frequent and intense, according to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment. On Monday, 234 experts warned in the report that the US is headed for disaster. Flooding, deadly fires and heat waves will not only become the norm but will intensify in a warming world, warns the 3,949-page assessment. Humans have already heated the planet by roughly 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1C), since the 19th century, largely by burning coal, oil and gas for energy with the US being one of the world's top producers. Scientists had expected temperatures to rise by 2.7F (1.5C) above pre-industrial levels between 2030 and 2052 but now believe it will happen between this year and 2040. The consequences are already ripping across the nation: This summer alone, blistering heat waves have killed more than 3,000 American and wildfires have cost at least $8 billion, while flooding has caused nearly $75 billion in damages in the past 30 years. California is currently being scorched by its second worst wildfire on record, the Dixie Fire. The fire, which is just 21 percent contained, has destroyed 404 buildings, plus 185 minor structures and damaged 38 additional structures - altogether it has burned around 463,477. Linda Mearns, a senior climate scientist at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research and co-author of the , said in a statement: 'It's just guaranteed that it's going to get worse. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.' The 2.7F (1.5C) mark is considered to be the point where climate change becomes increasingly dangerous. The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change committed countries to limiting warming to 2.7F (1.5C) but they have already risen by 2.2F (1.2C). UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the new report a 'code red for humanity'. He warned: 'The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk.' The key findings of the report are: Anthony Blinken, US Secretary of State, said in a statement: 'Today, the United States joined nearly 200 IPCC member governments in approving the Working Group I contribution to the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report. 'The report finds we are already edging closer to a 1.5 degrees Celsius [2.7F] warmer world, and every day emissions rise the prospects for averting the worst impacts of climate change become dimmer. This is why it is essential that all countries in particular the major economies do their part during this critical decade of the 2020s to put the world on a trajectory to keep a 1.5 degrees Celsius [2.7F] limit on warming within reach. 'This is why the United States has committed to a 50-52 percent reduction in emissions from 2005 levels in 2030 and is marshaling the entire federal government to tackle the climate crisis. We cannot delay ambitious climate action any longer.' As the planet warms, places will get hit more not just by extreme weather but by multiple climate disasters at once, the said. That's like what's now happening in the Western US, where heat waves, drought and wildfires compound the damage, Mearns said. This year, 37,803 fires have burned more than 3 million acres across the US, which is a major increase from last year's fire season that saw 32,059 fires scorch a total of 2.1 million acres. And wildfire activity continues in 15 states across the country. California's Dixie Fire, the states second largest on record, is still spreading across Plumas, Butte, Tehama and Lassen counties and has now scorched more than 463,000 acres. The Dixie blaze is the largest active wildfire in the United States, but one of only 11 major wildfires in California. Over the weekend it surpassed the 2018 Mendocino Complex Fire to make it the second-worst fire in state history, the authorities said. Crews estimate the fire, which began July 13, will not finally be extinguished before August 20. Environmentalist and former US Vice President Al Gore, who has been ringing the alarm on climate change for decades, shared his take on the report to his twitter account: 'The consequences of continuing to spew greenhouse gases into the atmosphere have never been starker. We've seen devastating heatwaves, historic droughts, & wildfires and floods that have wiped out entire towns. Today's @IPCC_CH report shows that this is part of our new normal.' Along with a surge in wildfires, much of the US is experience historic droughts that are draining rivers, lakes and reservoir to nearly bone-dry basins. As of August 3, 39.99 percent of the US and 43.6 percent of the lower 48 states are in drought. Lake Powell, America's second largest reservoir, hit its lowest level last month since it was first filled fifty years ago amid a climate-fueled drought and increasing demand for water. The rate at which both Lake Powell and the nearby Lake Mead in Nevada - America's largest reservoir - have drained this year has alarmed scientists and officials. Warnings over the water levels at the key reservoirs come as over 95 percent of the Western US is experiencing drought conditions. US Senator of Vermont, Bernie Sanders, responded to the report by sharing a message on his twitter account: 'The IPCC is telling us what every sane person knows. Unless there is BOLD action to combat climate change, the planet we will be leaving our kids and future generations will be increasingly uninhabitable. Now is the time for action.' The report also confirms that global sea level rise is accelerating. Globally, sea levels rose about 8 inches on average between 1901 and 2018, although the water rose much more in some places, including in some cities on the East Coast and Gulf Coast of the US. 'Around North America, relative sea level has increased over the last 3 decades at a rate 39 lower than global mean sea level (GMSL) in the subpolar North Atlantic and in the East Pacific, while it has increased at a rate higher 40 than GMSL in the subtropical North Atlantic,' authors shared in the report. 'Observations indicate that episodic coastal flooding is increasing along many coastlines in North America. 'Shoreline retreat rates of around 1 m yr1 41 have been observed during 42 19842015 along the sandy coasts of Northwestern North America and Northern Central America, while portions of the United States Gulf Coast have seen a retreat rate approaching 2.5 m yr1 43. 'Sandy shorelines 44 along Eastern North America and Western North America have remained more or less stable during 1984 2014, but a shoreline progradation rate of around 0.5 m yr1 45 has been observed in Northeastern North America.' The report also notes heat wave that used to happen only once every 50 years now happens once a decade, and if the world warms another degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), it will happen twice every seven years. The western US was covered in a heat dome throughout June that rose temperatures above 49C (121F) and killed at least 500 people across Oregon, Washington and up into Canada. More than 30 million Americans in western states were under excessive heat warnings or advisories early July. US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said: 'The impacts of the climate crisis, from extreme heat to wildfires to intense rainfall and flooding, will only continue to intensify unless we choose another course for ourselves and generations to come.' Scientists say this kind of heatwave is a once in a 50 year type of event, but the report from the UN warns scorchers like this will happy every decade if the world warms another degree Celsius (1.8F). Report co-chair Valerie Masson-Delmotte, a climate scientist at France's Laboratory of Climate and Environment Sciences at the University of Paris-Saclay, said in a statement: 'Our report shows that we need to be prepared for going into that level of warming in the coming decades. 'But we can avoid further levels of warming by acting on greenhouse gas emissions.' 'There is also a way for the world to stay at the 2.7-degree threshold with extreme and quick emission cuts, but even then, temperatures would rise 2.7F (1.5C) in a decade and even beyond, before coming back down, said co-author Maisia Rojas Corrada, director of the Center for Climate and Resilience Research in Chile. 'Anything we can do to limit, to slow down, is going to pay off,' Tebaldi said. 'And if we cannot get to 1.5 [2.7F], it's probably going to be painful, but it's better not to give up.' In the report's worst-case scenario, the world could be around 3.3 degrees Celsius (5.9F) hotter than now by the end of the century. But that scenario looks increasingly unlikely, said report co-author and climate scientist Zeke Hausfather, climate change director of the Breakthrough Institute. 'We are a lot less likely to get lucky and end up with less warming than we thought,' Hausfather said. 'At the same time, the odds of ending up in a much worse place than we expected if we do reduce our emissions are notably lower.' A 'major advance' in the understanding of how fast the world warms with each ton of carbon dioxide emitted allowed scientists to be far more precise in the scenarios in this report, Mason-Delmotte said. The report said ultra-catastrophic disasters commonly called 'tipping points,' like ice sheet collapses and the abrupt slowdown of ocean currents are 'low likelihood' but cannot be ruled out. The much talked-about shutdown of Atlantic ocean currents, which would trigger massive weather shifts, is something that's unlikely to happen in this century, report co-author Bob Kopp of Rutgers University said. Separate work from the University of Arizona Department of Geosciences attributed an increase in sea levels from New York to Newfoundland to the slowing down by 30 percent from 2009 to 2010, as well as unusual wind currents that pushed ocean waters towards the coast. If the ocean currents would come to a halt, winters in the US would become colder and stronger, and water would flow more inland on the east coast. Climate activist Greta Thunberg said the report 'confirms what we already know... that we are in an emergency.' 'We can still avoid the worst consequences, but not if we continue like today, and not without treating the crisis like a crisis,' she wrote on Twitter. The UN's assessment does not shy away from noting that climate change is because of humans' disregard for the planet in the last few centuries. UN scientists said humanity's damaging impact on the climate was a 'statement of fact', adding that it is 'unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, oceans and land'. Humans are very likely the main driver of the global retreat of glaciers, decline in sea ice, warming oceans and rising sea levels, the report said. It also found that human activity is already responsible for 1.98F (1.1C) of global warming since 1850, while temperatures will continue to increase until at least the middle of this century. Scientists said the world will reach or exceed 2.7F (1.5C) of warming over the next 20 years. US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm commented on Monday's report sayin: 'The planet is on fire, and our hair should be on fire about this! We need to move faster to deploy, deploy, deploy clean energy and make our communities more resilient.' Human-caused climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region around the world, the landmark report said, with stronger evidence of more frequent or intense heatwaves, heavy rain, droughts and tropical cyclones and the role humans play in driving the changes. Heatwaves, flooding and droughts will only become more frequent and intense, the UN scientists warned. Severe heatwaves that happened only once every 50 years are now happening roughly once a decade, while most land areas are seeing more rain or snowfall in a year and severe droughts are happening 1.7 times as often. The Arctic is likely to be 'practically sea ice-free' in September at least once before 2050, according to the IPCC's most optimistic scenario. The region is the fastest-warming area of the globe at least twice as fast as the global average. While Arctic sea ice levels vary throughout the year, the average lows during summer have been decreasing since the 1970s and are now at their lowest levels in 1,000 years. This melting creates a feedback loop, with reflective ice giving way to darker water that absorbs solar radiation, causing even more warming. Scientists warned that a rise in sea levels approaching six feet by the end of this century 'cannot be ruled out', adding that these changes would be 'irreversible' for hundreds to thousands of years. Warming in the polar regions is not only melting sea ice but also causing thermal expansion, where the water expands as sea temperatures rise. Both of these phenomena are factors in rising sea levels. If they keep rising as fast as they are then coastal regions and islands could be flooded or left underwater, leading to the displacement of millions of people and the loss of land for food growing. The report 'provides a strong sense of urgency to do even more,' said Jane Lubchenco, the White House deputy science adviser. In a new move, scientists emphasized how cutting airborne levels of methane a powerful but short-lived gas that has soared to record levels could help curb short-term warming. Lots of methane the atmosphere comes from leaks of natural gas, a major power source. Livestock also produces large amounts of the gas, a good chunk of it in cattle burps. More than 100 countries have made informal pledges to achieve 'net zero' human-caused carbon dioxide emissions sometime around mid-century, which will be a key part of climate negotiations this fall in Scotland. As for the US, President Joe Biden promised to rejoin the Paris Agreement earlier this year and set a course for the United States to tackle the climate crisis at home and abroad, reaching net zero emissions economy-wide no later than 2050. The report said those commitments are essential. 'It is still possible to forestall many of the most dire impacts,' said IPCC Vice Chair Ko Barrett, senior climate adviser for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.