The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released a new report providing multiple options for how the world can survive and adapt to climate change.
"The climate time bomb is ticking," said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres in a press release. "But today's IPCC report is a how-to guide to defuse the climate time bomb. It is a survival guide for humanity."
The IPCC's Synthesis Report is the most comprehensive document from the agency since the 2015 Paris Agreement and is intended to serve as a set of guidelines for governments around the world to keep warming within 1.5°C.
The agency stressed that carbon emissions have only increased since the agency established that temperature limit in 2018. Global temperatures are currently 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels, which the agency said has caused more frequent and intense extreme weather events around the world.
"Mainstreaming effective and equitable climate action will not only reduce losses and damages for nature and people, it will also provide wider benefits," said IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee. "This [report] underscores the urgency of taking more ambitious action and shows that, if we act now, we can still secure a liveable sustainable future for all."
The UN panel is calling for "climate resilient development" to reduce emissions and increased investment in developing clean energy sources and new transportation options that emphasize walking, cycling, and public transport.
"Transformational changes are more likely to succeed where there is trust, where everyone works together to prioritize risk reduction, and where benefits and burdens are shared equitably," Lee said. "We live in a diverse world in which everyone has different responsibilities and different opportunities to bring about change. Some can do a lot while others will need support to help them manage the change."
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018.
Clean water advocate and movie heroine Erin Brockovich is raising red flags over the state of the nation's water supply. She told Cheddar that it's time for the public to take notice of a problem they've largely been ignoring. "The issue has always been there ー we just either haven't talked about it or it hasn't been exposed," Brockovich said.
The Impossible Burger earned its Halal certification on Monday from the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America, marking a major milestone on the meat industry disruptor's path to feeding the world. Soon the Impossible Burger will be available in grocery stores, too, for home chefs who want to try their hand at cooking the meatless burger. David Lee, the COO and CFO of Impossible Foods, joined Cheddar to discuss the company's plan to "serve the world."
A.I. robot Sophia is getting a software upgrade, one that will inch her ー and perhaps A.I. ー even closer to humanity. According to her creator, not only will Sophia earn her citizenship, she will reach a level of advancement equal to human beings in roughly five to 10 years.
SpaceX plans to launch an unmanned cargo spacecraft bound for the International Space Station on Tuesday. But the scientific equipment and experiments aboard the ship are actually meant to improve life on Earth, Ken Shields, chief operating officer for the ISS National Laboratory, told Cheddar. With increasing privatization of the aerospace industry, Shields said space on shuttles to ISS is increasingly in-demand, even if the experiments aboard aren't exactly out-of-this-world.
Ignorance is a major impediment in the effort to reverse climate change, said the former chief sustainability officer for the Obama administration. “I think lot of it is lack of awareness, these are topics that a lot of energy nerds like myself have been thinking of for a long time," Christine Harada, the president of i(x) Investments told Cheddar on Wednesday.
Sarah Lewin, associate editor at Space.com, discusses InSight's successful seven month journey to Mars. InSight will drill into the red planet to learn more about its origins and monitor for Marsquakes.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2018.
A nasty E.coli outbreak has caused the government to take the extraordinary step of warning Americans to stay away from all romaine lettuce in any form ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, and experts are praising regulators for issuing such a sweeping alert ー even though it will affect the Thanksgiving holiday meal prep of millions of families and restaurants.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know.
