- Bayern hit nine, Real Madrid and Liverpool win as new Champions League kicks off
- Author John Grisham joins bid to save Texas death row inmate
- Venezuela arrests fourth American over alleged 'plot' against Maduro
- 'Happy' Mbappe strikes on Madrid Champions League debut win over Stuttgart
- Man Utd hit Barnsley for seven in League Cup rout
- Dolphins quarterback Tagovailoa facing concussion layoff
- Stylish Liverpool strut past Milan in confident Champions league opener
- Kane scores four as Bayern put nine past Zagreb in the Champions League
- Mbappe strikes on Madrid Champions League debut win over Stuttgart
- More than 3,600 food packaging chemicals found in human bodies
- Harris calls Trump as assassination scare sparks tensions
- Dow edges down from record as some eye a smaller Fed rate cut
- Sommer vows Inter will 'defend with all we have' to stop Haaland
- Report links meatpacking companies to 'war on nature' in Brazil
- Bolivian ex-leader Morales, backers set out on weeklong protest march
- Smith grateful to McCullum for launching his England career
- Arizona to ask court to rule on voting rights
- Villa make perfect start on Champions League return after 41-year absence
- Israeli supply chain infiltration likely behind Hezbollah pager blasts: analysts
- Rodgers backs Celtic to be 'really competitive' in Champions League
- Spacewalk an 'emotional experience' for private astronauts
- Storm Boris toll rises to 22 in central Europe
- Nine dead, 2,800 wounded as Lebanon's Hezbollah hit by pager blasts
- Boeing, union resume talks as strike empties Seattle plants
- Over 3,600 food packaging chemicals found in human bodies
- Australia's Zampa accepts Ashes chances remote as 100th ODI looms
- UN General Assembly debates call for end to Israeli occupation
- Marseille complete signing of French international Rabiot
- Easterby to fill in as Ireland coach while Farrell is with the Lions
- Hezbollah in Lebanon hit by wave of deadly pager blasts
- Postecoglou taken aback by criticism of his second season success claim
- US, European stocks rise on retail sales, rate cut expectations
- Fendi sees Roaring 20s at Milan Fashion Week in challenging times
- Ronaldo's Al Nassr part ways with coach Castro
- Scottish government backs Glasgow to stage troubled 2026 Commonwealth Games
- Storm Boris toll rises to 21 in central Europe
- Instagram, under pressure, tightens protection for teens
- Inflation slows again in Canada to 2%
- US, European stocks rise on eve of Fed rate decision
- EU bans Algerian spread toasted on social media
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs charged with racketeering, sex trafficking
- Trump returns to campaign trail after assassination scare
- Activist urges repatriation of Native Americans dead in Paris 'human zoo'
- US retail sales see slight rise, beating expectations
- US Fed begins two-day meeting set to end with rate cut
- Exploding Hezbollah pagers wound hundreds across Lebanon
- Runners-up Yokohama thrashed 7-3 in AFC Champions League goal fest
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs to plead not guilty to racketeering, sex trafficking
- Jihadist group claims rare attack on Mali capital
- 'I am a rapist,' Frenchman tells trial over mass rape of wife
UN report to lay out options to halt climate crisis
Nearly 200 nations gather on Monday to confront a question that will outlive Russia's invasion of Ukraine: how do we stop carbon pollution overheating the planet and threatening life as we know it?
The answer is set to arrive on April 4 after closed-door, virtual negotiations approve the summary of a phonebook-sized report detailing options for drawing down greenhouse gases and extracting them out of thin air.
"The science is crystal clear, the impacts are costly and mounting, but we still have some time to close the window and get ahead of the worst of them if we act now," said Alden Meyer, a senior analyst at climate and energy think tank E3G.
"This report will supply the answers as to what we need if we're serious about getting there."
In August 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) laid out the physical science: changes in global warming and sea level rise, along with shifts in the frequency, duration and intensity of cyclones, heatwaves, droughts and other forms of extreme weather.
That was the first instalment of a three-part assessment, the sixth since 1990. It projected that Earth's surface temperature will rise 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, perhaps within a decade.
A 1.5C cap on global warming -- the aspirational goal of the 2015 Paris climate accord -- has been embraced as a target by most of the world's nations.
Current carbon-cutting commitments under the treaty, however, still put us on a catastrophic path toward 2.7C of warming by 2100.
- A liveable future -
Part two of the more than 10,000-page report -- described by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres as an "atlas of human suffering" -- catalogued past and future climate impacts on human society and the natural world.
Delaying climate action would severely reduce the chances of a "livable future," it concluded.
Part three -- spread across thousands of pages -- is about how to slow and stop warming, with separate chapters on the key sectors where rapid and deep change is critical: energy, transport, industry, agriculture, among others.
"We are talking about the large-scale transformation of all the major systems," climate economist and co-author Celine Guivarch told AFP.
It also focuses on ways to curb carbon emissions by reducing demand, whether through making buildings more energy efficient or encouraging shifts in lifestyle, such as eating less beef and not flying half-way around the world for a week-long holiday.
The report details more than a dozen techniques for pulling CO2 out of the air, which will be needed to compensate for sectors -- such as aviation and shipping -- that are likely still carbon polluters by mid-century.
"Many things have changed" since the previous three-part report, which came out eight years ago, said Taryn Fransen, an analyst at the World Resources Institute.
The Paris Agreement -- the first climate deal in which all countries pledged action -- was signed.
The world has seen an endless crescendo of deadly climate impacts, from drought to fire to floods.
The price of renewable energy, key to the reducing emissions, has fallen below the cost of fossil fuels in most markets.
- 'Inflamed situation' -
The IPCC "solutions" report draws from hundreds of models projecting development pathways that keep Earth within the bounds of the Paris temperature goals.
"There are scenarios that show high renewables and low nuclear, and scenarios that show the opposite," said Fransen.
"This report lays out those pathways. Now it's up now to our leaders to take that to heart."
Besides feeding into UN political negotiations, which resume in November in Egypt at COP 27, the IPCC findings will also be important "for the conversation going on in the US and Europe around the need to transition away from Russian oil and gas," said Meyer.
The head of the IPCC delegation from Ukraine made this point in a dramatic statement at a closed plenary in February, only days after Russian troops invaded her country.
"Human-induced climate change and the war on Ukraine have the same roots -- fossil fuels -- and our dependence on them," said Svitlana Krakovska, according to multiple sources.
The war in Ukraine will likely come up during the two-week IPCC negotiations starting Monday.
"It's a more enflamed situation," said Meyer. "I don't know how this is gonna play out but it's something to watch."
P.Stevenson--AMWN