Climate crisis: 'The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable'

Poolbeg incinerator pictured from Sandymount Strand, Co Dublin, on Monday afternoon as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said strong and sustained reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide are required urgently to limit the damage to the planet. Picture: Stephen Collins/ Collins Photos

Evidence from world-leading scientists that people have been the main driver of the planet warming faster since 1970 than in any other 50-year period over the past 2,000 years should be a "code red for humanity".

That is according to United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres, following the publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report that found evidence that the past five years have been the hottest on record since 1850, while sea levels in the past 50 years have recorded almost treble the levels seen in the first 70 years of the 20th century.