PARIS, Feb 27, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Nearly 200 nations approved a major UN 
climate change report detailing the accelerating impacts of global warming on 
Sunday, at the end of a sometimes fraught two-week meeting overshadowed by 
Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

   The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed that 
debates had concluded over the report's crucial "Summary for Policymakers", a 
40-page overview distilling the thousands of pages of scientific research, 
which has been reviewed line-by-line and will be made public on February 28.

   Species extinction, ecosystem collapse, mosquito-borne disease, deadly 
heat, water shortages, and reduced crop yields are already measurably worse 
due to global heating.

   Just in the last year, the world has seen a cascade of unprecedented 
floods, heatwaves and wildfires across four continents.

   All these impacts will accelerate in the coming decades even if the carbon 
pollution driving climate change is rapidly brought to heel, the report is 
expected to warn, according to an early draft seen by AFP in 2021.

   It will also underscore the urgent need for "adaptation" -- a term that 
refers to preparations for devastating consequences that can no longer be 
avoided. 

   In some cases this means that adapting to intolerably hot days, flash 
flooding and storm surges has become a matter of life and death.

   The 2015 Paris deal calls for capping global warming at "well below" 2C, 
and ideally 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). 

   In August 2021, another IPCC report on the physical science of human-
caused climate change found that global heating is virtually certain to pass 
1.5C, probably within a decade.

   Earth's surface has warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius since the 19th century.

   "We cannot escape the climate crisis," said Mohamed Adow, the head of 
think tank Power Shift Africa. 

   He said the IPCC report would be useful for people to understand "the 
scale of the suffering we will endure" if humanity does not drastically cut 
greenhouse gas pollution -- as well as adapting to the challenges to come.

   "The backbone of climate action is science and the science is clear. It's 
telling us how dire our situation is. What is lacking is action from 
governments," he told AFP.