To wildfires spreading through Montana, Utah, Colorado, California and Canada, to melting glaciers in Antarctica, to an extreme and deadly heatwave on the west coast— These are only a few examples of how global climate change is making a direct impact on our communities.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a body created by the United Nations and releases reports every 6-7 years. The last report was published in 2014 and mainly focused on the Paris Agreement. Most recently, the panel released the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) on Aug. 9 which took over coverage on news channels and social media accounts. This was the first time the IPCC has ever conducted a virtual approval session for the report. 

Over 14,000 scientific papers are referenced in the report with over 80,000 comments made by governments around the world. This report is meant to educate the public, government systems, and institutions on the IPCC’s current understanding of the climate system as of today.

The 1,400+ page document consists of thirteen chapters of the working group’s report that dives into topics on climate change, paleoclimate archives, climate model simulations, the physical, chemical and biological processes of the climate, and more.

This hard-to-digest report may seem intimidating, but it is crucial in understanding how society can move forward in this environment. Sadly, many of the detrimental effects on the environment are irreversible. A majority of the countries have delayed beneficial environmental impacts like decreasing fossil fuel emissions, switching to renewable energy and more which has caused global warming to greatly increase creating a larger impact than climate scientists have once predicted.

The report states that the world should expect 30 years of worsening climate impacts, even if we all make a dramatic change to our daily lives due to how serious and irreversible the impacts are. The world has warmed by 1.1 degrees Celsius since the 19th century and at this rate, it will continue to increase. 

One key point of the report that is consistently reiterated is how humans have made a direct contribution to global warming. This is a heated debate across political parties, but the IPCC made sure to provide ample evidence and context to explain this impact. The report begins  by saying, “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.”

Another consistent point in the report is how these changes in the earth are happening fast. The report states how the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is at its highest point in the past two million years. In addition, the sea levels have doubled since 2006 making coastal cities and towns at risk of adverse environmental impacts to their homes. 

A silver lining to the report is the dramatic improvement of climate science since the last report. This has increased reliability in technology and knowledge on topics such as global warming and fossil fuels which provides more credibility behind these serious climate claims. This has included an increase in data and instruments on land, in the oceans and in space. This point is made to reduce any uncertainty people may have over the reliability of the report.

Although this report is strictly scientific and stating the facts, it is important for people to know that everyone is capable of making a positive change in the environment. This report should not be scary, but rather encourage people to make an effort to keep this planet as healthy and green as possible. There is hope for the second half of the century, but these changes would need to start now.