The UN climate chief says world leaders must recognize there is no option except to speed-up and scale-up action to tackle global warming, warning that continuing on the current path will lead to 'a catastrophe.'
In this March 29, 2019, photo, Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change , is at UN headquarters. Last Updated Thursday, April 25, 2019 7:28PM EDT
Some top scientists say reaching the "tipping point" in 12 years is an oversimplification of a U.N. report last year. A report last year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, concluded that while it's technically possible to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, it is highly unlikely because this would require a dramatic overhaul of the global economy, including a shift away from fossil fuels. Deep in the report, scientists say less than 2 per cent of 529 of their calculated possible future scenarios kept warming below the 1.5 degree C goal.
The U.N. report does not say 2030, the date used, is a last chance, hard deadline for action, as it has been interpreted in some quarters. Governments get trapped in dealing with immediate needs "and we are not yet in a situation where we can say we have a broad understanding that the threat to climate change is part of those immediate needs," Espinosa said.
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