By AFP
More than 11,000 scientists warned Tuesday of “untold suffering” due to global warming, even as another team said Paris carbon-cutting pledges are “too little, too late”.
The European Union, meanwhile, confirmed that last month was the warmest October ever registered, fast on heels of a record September and the hottest month ever in July.
Three-quarters of national commitments under the Paris climate accord to curb greenhouse gases will not even slow the accelerating pace of global warming, according to a report from five senior scientists.
The sobering assessment came a day after President Donald Trump formally notified the United Nations of the US withdrawal from the 2015 Paris climate pact, triggering concerns of how other nations might react.
“With few exceptions, the pledges of rich, middle-income and poor nations are insufficient to address climate change,” said Robert Watson, who chaired both the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the UN’s science body for biodiversity.
“As they stand, the pledges are far too little, too late.”
In parallel, more than 11,000 scientists sounded a five-bell alarm in the peer-reviewed journal BioScience, noting that the world had failed to act on global warming despite the accumulation of evidence over 30 years.
