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'Final warning': Lawmakers, Biden administration sound alarm over UN climate report and urge swift action
Lawmakers and top climate officials in President Joe Biden's administration sounded the alarm on Monday in response to a new UN report.
Science & Tech
Lawmakers and top climate officials in President Joe Biden's administration sounded the alarm on Monday in response to a new report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, urging nations to swiftly limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
"If Senators truly followed the science in this report, we'd have 100 votes for climate action to match the 100 percent certainty that human-caused climate change is destroying our planet," Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts said in a statement. "This report must be the final warning to the world that time has run out to save the planet from dangerous and irreversible climate change."
The latest IPCC report finds the world is rapidly running out of time to keep human-caused global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The report lays out different scenarios if world nations decarbonize and collectively limit their warming to 1.5 degrees, compared to what will happen if they don't take action -- leading to global warming of 2 or 3 degrees Celsius. The latter would have catastrophic consequences for the planet, leading to already severe weather events like fires and flooding getting worse.
"Every bit of warming matters, and every bit of avoided warming matters," Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the deputy director for climate and environment at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, told CNN. "We have to enhance ambition and tackle the climate crisis like the existential threat that it is."