The world’s leading authority on climate change adopted on Saturday a landmark report that warns that the impacts of global warming are already visible, will accelerate this century and are potentially irreversible.“The parties to the governments adopted the full report, consisting of a shorter synthesis and a longer version,” said Jose Romero, a Swiss delegate and one of the authors of the reports.The document, to be formally presented later in the day in the Spanish city of Valencia by UN chief Ban Ki-moon, encapsulates the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest findings on the effects of greenhouse gases.It seeks to guide politicians facing tough decisions on cutting pollution from fossil fuels, shifting to cleaner energy, bolstering defences against extreme weather, and other issues set to intensify due to climate change.Ban warned on Saturday in a published commentary to the first IPCC overview since 2001 that the world was on the verge of a “catastrophe” due to global warming.The draft report from the Nobel-winning IPCC, which was not expected to change significantly, said the evidence of a human role in the warming of the planet was now “unequivocal.”Retreating glaciers and loss of snow in Alpine regions, thinning Arctic summer sea ice and thawing permafrost shows that climate change is already on the march, it said. By 2100, global average surface temperatures could rise by between 1.1 C (1.98 F) and 6.4 C (11.52 F) compared to 1980-99 levels, while sea levels will rise by between 18 and 59 centimetres, it forecasted.
