Unpacking IPCC's 'Bleakest Warning Yet' on Climate Change for India

For India, this report predicts that heat and humidity levels would pass the limit of human survivability.

Image used for representation only.

(Photo: Namita Chauhan/The Quint)

The impact of climate change will be more severe and less avoidable in the years to come, according to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which was released on 28 February.

Issuing its "bleakest warning yet," the new report concludes that global warming is outpacing our ability to cope and that governments around the world are not doing enough to protect us from the hazards that climate change has already unleashed, let alone from future disasters.

For India, the report says that the country could be one of those where heat and humidity levels would pass the limit of human survivability and climate change could mean about 40 percent of people in India living with water scarcity compared to 33 percent now.

The contents of this report are grim and upsetting. But like the physical science report that the panel published last year, none of this is new knowledge and scientists have been warning about this for years. This report pertinently provides the most detailed look yet at the threats posed by global warming.

It draws a direct link between climate change and serious consequences like humanitarian crises, food insecurity, water scarcity, migration, and even premature deaths.

And to combat this, nations across the world have vowed to limit total global warming to no more than 1.5 degree Celsius compared with pre-industrial levels. But what this report makes very clear is that exceeding this threshold will result in permanent lasting damage and that even humanity’s best effort to adapt could falter.