UN: Global Warming Threatens the Humanity Directly

Two days after the climate summit failed to deliver on serious promises to reduce greenhouse emissions, the UN warned today that global warming is devastating the oceans and ice on the Earth in a way that directly threatens the humanity, AFP reported.

Melting ice and glaciers, rising sea levels, pollution - all destroy marine life and renewable sources of fresh water and lead to superstorms that devastate large cities every year. This is evidenced by the findings of a key assessment endorsed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which includes 195 nations.

Some of these influences are irreversible.

The report, which covers 7,000 studies, is a sobering reminder that record-breaking volumes of harmful emissions, mainly from fossil fuels, are pushing the planet toward a climate that our species cannot bear.

But the document also alarms more clearly than before about the need for the humanity to combat changes that can no longer be avoided.

For some island nations and coastal cities, the current trend means almost certainly seeking a new home.

Among the projections, climate change has made tropical storms bigger and more powerful and will increase their potential in the coming decades if global warming is not limited to two degrees Celsius.

By the middle of the century, over 1 billion people will live in areas threatened by cyclones, large-scale floods and other extreme events, the report said.

Since 2005, sea levels have increased 2.5 times faster than in the twentieth century, mainly because of melting ice sheets. And the protection from the floods caused by this trend will cost humanity hundreds of billions.