EXPLAINER: UN 'house on fire' climate report key to action
A new science report from the United Nations will spell out in excruciating detail the pain of climate change to people and the planet with the idea — the hope really — that if leaders pay attention, some of the worst can be avoided or lessened.
One scientist calls it the “Your House is On Fire” report.
While these reports often can come across as depressing, to scientists and world leaders, the idea isn’t to lower people's spirits. The reports are designed to help the world navigate a dangerous future, back away from some cliffs where harms are irreversible and severe, and mostly to give leaders negotiating deals on how to curb future warming a sense of what can be done and why scientists say something must be done.
It’s really about hope not doom, said German vice chancellor and minister for economy and climate, Robert Habeck. American climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of The Nature Conservancy and Texas Tech agreed.
“Hope can lead to action,” Habeck said in an interview with The Associated Press. “If you’re afraid of something, then you hide away, you shy away, you run away. If you hope for something, then you can find some motivation, power and energy in yourself. And this is what we need: hope that we can achieve great things that the problems of the moment can be overcome by building up a new renewable world.”
WHAT IS IT
Monday’s report is from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a heavy hitter group of hundreds of scientists the UN asks to issue major reports every five to seven years about climate change. The scientists do three main reports. The first, on what’s known about the science behind climate change and general projections of future warming, came out last August and got nicknamed “code red” by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. After...
