Global Temperatures to Top Paris Agreement Limit by 2060: Report

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says some changes are already irreversible, and warns of even more dire ramifications if global carbon emissions aren’t reduced immediately.

Written byAnnie Melchor

| 3 min read

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Today (August 9), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report compiling the planet’s most up-to-date information about climate change. The report, which was written by 234 authors from around the world and cites data from over 14,000 studies, warns policymakers and the public that climate change is unequivocally caused by human action—and that we’re running out of time to reverse it.

According to the report, global temperatures have warmed by about 1.1 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times, and without any reduction in emissions, within the next 40 years those temperatures will meet or exceed 2.0 degrees Celsius—the cap set by the Paris Accords in 2015.

According to The Washington Post, warming of over 2 degrees Celsius could be enough for Greenland’s ice sheet to melt, which would cause sea levels to rise globally by more than 6 feet. Effects ...

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Meet the Author

Annie Melchor
Stephanie "Annie" Melchor got her PhD from the University of Virginia in 2020, studying how the immune response to the parasite Toxoplasma gondii leads to muscle wasting and tissue scarring in mice. While she is still an ardent immunology fangirl, she left the bench to become a science writer and received her master’s degree in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 2021. You can check out more of her work here.
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