UN panel urges unprecedented measures to avoid catastrophic climate change

Humanity has to make some rapid and radical changes to its habits unless it wants to face the consequences of catastrophic climate change, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned in a report released on Monday. The scientists project that average temperatures are likely to rise by more than the 1.5-degree threshold set in the 2015 Paris Agreement, sometime between 2030 and 2052. The agreement seeks to keep the temperatures at below two degrees Celsius more than pre-industrial levels, with a rise of one degree Celsius already reached. Staying within the limit would require cutting carbon dioxide emissions by about 45 percent of 2010 levels by 2030, through measures like introducing renewable energy and by using carbon-capture and storage technologies, the IPCC report suggested.