The new U.N. climate report

The new IPCC report on the climate change says hotter temperatures and extreme weather are now irreversible. What can still be done to fight the climate crisis?

Air Date: August 11, 2021 10:00 am

Trees burn after firefighters conducted a firing operation to slow the spread of the Dixie Fire in Plumas County, Calif, on Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021. Dry and windy conditions have led to increased fire activity as firefighters battle the blaze which ignited July 14. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Headlines around the globe paint a frightening picture of a climate run amok – droughts, heat waves, wildfires, cyclones and devastating floods – and that’s just with a 1.1 degrees Celsius temperature rise. A new landmark scientific report says the heat and extreme weather that we’re experiencing is now baked into our planet’s climate and things are going to get even worse. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change study also definitively links greenhouse gas emissions to the rising temperature and extreme weather events. This hour, can the Earth handle the heat? What does it mean for the world’s people, plants and animals and is there anything we can still do to blunt the impact? We’ll talk with Rutgers University climate scientist ROBERT KOPP, a lead author of the IPCC report.

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