Published September 3rd, 2026 - 08:44 GMT
ALBAWABA - According to a first-of-its-kind UN report, the earth has hit the point of no return in terms of global warming and the worst effects of climate change are now unavoidable.The UN says the focus is no longer maintenance but getting temperatures below the danger zone and back to safety, the danger zone being above 1.5C of pre-industrial temperature levels.The world is currently at 1.4C and is “speeding past the limit to avoid climate catastrophe,” according to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.In their report, the UN points out that we have lost our chance to prevent the worst of what is to come from climate change; things such as weather-related disasters, rising seas, extinctions and melting ice and glaciers – like the one in Tibet – are fully expected to take place more severely and more often.The Nepal disaster is the latest example of how climate change is raising the risk of relying on water for electricity in the Himalayas. A changing climate is bringing with it unstable glaciers and unpredictable rain, creating new risks for existing projects and raising the… pic.twitter.com/ageKtnRGvh— Bloomberg (@business) September 2, 2026 The UN confirmed we will be exceeding the 1.5C threshold agreed upon at the 2015 Paris climate summit, the summit of which the U.S. has withdrawn twice – once in each Trump term as Biden attempted to put things back on track."It's a reality check. We have to live with this warmer world," said report co-author Richard Betts, a climate scientist at the University of Exeter. "But there's still a lot we can do to limit warming."The incessant burning of coal, oil and gas has been damaging our planet since the industrial revolution, but now its toll will be irreversible damage, the UN says.Scientists, charged by the UN after the Paris climate summit, found out that people’s lives will start being dramatically affected by global warming once temperatures reach 2C above the pre-industrial average;Consequently climate experts were adamant on keeping the temperature below 1.5C, now that ship has sailed as the UN’s report on Wednesday admitted that the world will cross the 1.5 threshold "in the next few years."The UN, however, is not hopeless, neither are climate experts; University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver said that the 1.5 C limit is not "some magical climate cliff" where after crossing it we should just throw up our hands and give up; "Every tenth of a degree we avoid still means less damage." he said."Let's be very clear, 1.5 target is still the goal. But now we need to approach it differently from above," said UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen.“This pathway requires new thinking, new governance, new financial infrastructure and architecture,” Elisabeth Gilmore said, an associate professor of environmental engineering at Carleton University in Ottawa, who was a contributing author to the UNEP report.
