More than one million species are at risk of annihilation in the span of the next 10 years, experts have warned, as per the leaked draft of the UN global assessment report.
The UN report on climate change, compiled by 400 leading experts at the UN over the course of past three years, further indicates that urgent action must be taken to reverse the loss of species on which humanity depends for food, pollination, clean water and a stable climate.
“We are in trouble if we don’t act,” warned Robert Watson, the chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). “There is a range of actions that can be taken to protect nature and meet human goals for health and development,” he told The Guardian.
The final report, which will be released today that is May 6, will be the most comprehensive UN global assessment on the study of life ever undertaken.
The experts, however, have been warning about the consequences of climate change for a while. In October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in a special report had said that the consequences will be disastrous and extreme weather events will be more frequent and severe, if the current trends of global warming are not reversed immediately.
Impact of climate change on India
Back home in India, states like Odisha are already bearing the brunt of climate change-related natural disasters.
Cyclone Fani is said to have been aggravated from the heat in the Bay of Bengal, as per Global Strategic Communications Council. The rising temperature of the seas, globally, is being attributed to global warming.
Referring to Cyclone Fani and urging people to burn less fossil fuel, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University Michael E. Mann said, “Fani is just the latest reminder of the heightened threat that millions of people around the world face from the combination of rising seas and more intense hurricanes and typhoons. That threat will only rise if we continue to warm the planet by burning fossil fuels and emitting carbon into the atmosphere,” as reported in The Times of India.
Due to Cyclone Fani, the strongest tropical Cyclone to hit India in the past 20 years, more than 11 lakh people were evacuated from their house in Odisha alone.
In 2017, the Global Climate Risk Index, published by the Germanwatch, an independent Berlin-based development and environmental organisation, rated India as the 6th most vulnerable country to climate impacts in the world.
According to the report, India with 2119 deaths witnessed the maximum number of global warming-related casualties across the world in 2016 and if the experts are to be believed, the number is only expected to rise.
Also Read: With Cyclone Fani Wreaking Havoc In Odisha, Here’s Why Most Cyclones Hit India’s East Coast
