Latest UN report to reveal if keeping global warming to 1.5C is still on target 

The IPCC warned in April last year it was 'now or never' if the world is to limit global warming to 1.5C. File picture: AP/Sergio Azenha

The final UN-backed assessment on the current state of global climate change will be published on Monday, with warnings from Irish environmentalists that staving off the worst of the fallout is "slipping from our grasp".

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release its "synthesis report" from its sixth assessment cycle in order to inform the forthcoming UN global stocktake of climate change.

The stocktake is when countries will review progress towards the Paris Agreement goals of 2015, including the goal of keeping global warming to well below 2C, while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5C.

The previous five assessment cycles by the IPCC took place between 1995 and 2014.

The 1.5C figure is considered the limit to stave off the very worst effects of climate change by scientists.

In the first report on the latest climate science, the IPCC concluded in August 2021 that it was "unequivocal" that human activity is warming the planet, causing rapid and widespread changes to land, atmosphere, and oceans.

The changes, which are unprecedented for many centuries or even many thousands of years, have pushed up global temperatures by 1.1C, and are driving weather and climate extremes in every region across the world.

It said global warming of between 1.5C and 2C — limits countries have committed to in order to avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change — will be exceeded in the 21st century unless deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades.

The IPCC referenced more than 14,000 scientific papers and involved 234 authors from around the world — including Maynooth University's professor in physical geography (climate change) Peter Thorne.

That report was followed up in April last year with a stark warning from IPCC, which said it was "now or never" if the world is to limit global warming to 1.5C.

The next three years will be the most critical in recent global history if "unprecedented heatwaves, terrifying storms, and widespread water shortages" are to be avoided, it said.

Monday's synthesis report will provide an overview of the state of knowledge on the science of climate change now compared to the fifth assessment cycle unveiled in 2014.

Coordinator of the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition in Ireland Sadhbh O’Neill said the reports published under the IPCC sixth assessment so far "have been crystal clear that the next seven years are the very last chance to keep this survival limit within reach".

"We cannot afford to let the 1.5C temperature threshold in the Paris Agreement slip out of our grasp. Climate change is already catastrophic at 1.1C and those fractions of degrees literally mean millions of lives in some of the poorest countries of the world.

“The science says that we need to go much faster in cutting emissions and building resilience. The transformations needed are less radical than the disruptions the world will experience if we fail to act quickly enough."

If greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow, the 1.5C threshold might be breached by as early as 2030 or 2035, she said. 

"This underlines the importance of emission reductions immediately, across all sectors," she added.