Climate report understates threat

Description: 

"The UN?s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius, released on Monday, is a major advance over previous efforts to alert world leaders and citizens to the growing climate risk. But the report, dire as it is, misses a key point: Self-reinforcing feedbacks and tipping points—the wildcards of the climate system—could cause the climate to destabilize even further. The report also fails to discuss the five percent risk that even existing levels of climate pollution, if continued unchecked, could lead to runaway warming—the so-called ?fat tail” risk. These omissions may mislead world leaders into thinking they have more time to address the climate crisis, when in fact immediate actions are needed. To put it bluntly, there is a significant risk of self-reinforcing climate feedback loops pushing the planet into chaos beyond human control..."

Creator/author: 

Mario Molina, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, Durwood J. Zaelke,

Source/publisher: 

"Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists"

Date of Publication: 

2018-10-09

Date of entry: 

2018-10-21

Grouping: 

  • Individual Documents

Category: 

Language: 

English