The international effort to tackle climate change must be accelerated in order to limit global temperature rises, a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has found. The IPCC report, released in South Korea, is an urgent reminder that global warming poses a grave risk to humanity.

Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees would require rapid, far reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society, the IPCC said in this new assessment. It compares the impact of global warming of 1.5 deg C and 2 deg C. It states that the world stands on the brink of failure when it comes to holding climate change to moderate levels and that there is only a decade to try and cut emissions.

Integrated Assessment Models of climate change mitigation, assessed in IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (IPCC SR1.5), show a large spectrum of 1.5°C- compatible pathways that limit warming to this level during the century, or exceed it by only a limited amount of less than 0.1°C (“low overshoot”).

Alongside the global temperature goals of limiting global average warming to well below 2°C, and to make concerted efforts to limit warming to below 1.5°C, the Paris Agreement aims to collectively enhance adaptation, build resilience to climate change, promote low carbon development and ensure that finance flows are provided to support these eff

It is time to accept that we are beginning to see the impact of climate change in the form of increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, and this would get worse with rising temperature. The trend of extreme weather events in the last 118 years suggests that the definition of 'normal' is changing.