Thread by @nytimes

Global warming will get progressively worse and cannot be stopped over the next 30 years, a major new UN report has concluded, because the world's nations delayed so long in curbing emissions. A hotter future is now essentially locked in.
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Already, the consequences have been stark: deadly heat waves, devastating floods, raging wildfires.

But that’s only the beginning, according to the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body of scientists convened by the UN.
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Humans have already heated the planet about 1.1 degrees Celsius — 2 degrees Fahrenheit — since the 19th century. Even if nations start sharply cutting their emissions today, the report found, total warming is expected to rise to around 1.5 degrees Celsius.nyti.ms/3CuOd4f

Humanity can still prevent the planet from getting even hotter, but it would require a major shift: If the world managed to stop adding CO2 to the atmosphere by around 2050, warming could conceivably stabilize at about 1.5 degrees Celsius, the report says. nyti.ms/3CuOd4f

But if nations fail to do so, global average temperatures will keep rising.

And the hotter it gets, the greater the risk of crossing dangerous “tipping points,” such as the irreversible collapse of the immense ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica. nyti.ms/3CuOd4f