Dear MEL Topic Readers,
UN chief says world is on ‘highway to climate hell’ as planet endures
12 straight months of unprecedented heat
At the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 21) in Pari in 2015, 196
parties agreed to combat climate change and to accelerate and intensify the
actions and investments needed for a sustainable low-carbon future. It was
agreed to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above
pre-industrial levels. The UN’s climate panel warns that crossing the 1.5°C
threshold risks unleashing far more severe climate change impacts, including
more frequent and severe droughts, heatwaves, and rainfall. However, the world seems
to have made less effort to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions but burned
more fossil fuels since then. As a result, the world experienced the hottest
temperatures each month for the 12 consecutive months until May. Furthermore,
it has been at least 1.5 degrees warmer than temperatures before industrialization
each month since July last year. In fact, dozens have died in India in the last
few weeks as temperatures exceeded 50C. In Mexico, howler monkeys dropped dead
from trees because of heat. The UN chief warned that humans could be the meteor
that extinguished dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Indeed, even though the recent
temperature-warming El Niño cycle is nearing its end, greenhouse gas emissions
aren’t decreasing. Will we make more efforts to keep the environment survivable
or keep burning fossil fuels to destroy the planet?
Read the article and learn about how warm the last 12 months were.
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