UN makes new prediction about timeline for human-induced climate apocalypse

United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres also called for an end to fossil fuel projects and for rich countries to quit the use of coal, oil, and gas by 2040, The Associated Press reports.

The report’s authors stated that to stay under the warming limit set in the Paris Climate Accord, the world needs to cut 60 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, compared to the amount used in 2019.

The report called climate change "a threat to human well-being and planetary health."

Many scientists, including at least three co-authors of the IPCC report, said that hitting a 1.5-degree increase is inevitable, which would lead to the irreversible melting of ice sheets, sea level rise of several meters, and "tipping points" around that temperature of species extinction, including coral reefs. The IPCC report emphasized the disparity between rich nations and poor countries, which are hit harder by extreme weather.

The report concluded that if the world continues to use all the fossil fuel-powered infrastructure either existing now or proposed, Earth will warm at least 2 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times. Therefore, the IPCC report called for the world to reduce carbon emissions, as well as end the use of coal by 2030, and ensure carbon-free electricity generation in the developed world by 2035, which includes no gas-fired power plants either.

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its first report in 1992, which predicted a "certainty" of rising greenhouse gas emissions.

The second report in 1995 attributed the increasing global temperatures to human-caused emissions.

The third report in 2001 found "stronger evidence" for an anthropogenic signal in the climate record, and the fourth report in 2007 declared the warming of the climate as "unequivocal."

In 2018, a special IPCC report highlighted the differences in the impacts of global warming between a rise of 1.5C and 2C, with the latter causing many more people to face extreme heatwaves, droughts, and food insecurity compared to the former.