BBC
It is likely to be the most critical and controversial report on climate change in recent years.
Leading scientists are meeting in South Korea this week to see if global temperatures can be kept from rising by more than 1.5C this century.
The world has already passed one degree of warming as carbon emissions have ballooned since the 1850s.
Many low-lying countries say they may disappear under the sea if the 1.5C limit is breached.After a week of deliberations in the city of Incheon, the researchers’ new report is likely to say that keeping below this limit will require urgent and dramatic action from governments and individuals alike.One scientist told BBC News that our lives would never be the same if the world changed course to stay under 1.5C.
The new study is being produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body set up to provide a clear scientific view for governments on the causes, impacts and solutions to rising temperatures.
When the Paris climate agreement was signed in December 2015, there was delight and surprise among many delegates that countries had agreed that the long-term goal of the pact should be to keep global temperatures “well below two degrees C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees C”.
To examine the challenges and impacts of keeping temperatures below the 1.5C limit, the UN asked the IPCC to produce a special report, which the scientific body has delivered in record time.