If the world doesn't cut pollution of heat-trapping gases, the already noticeable harms of global warming could spiral "out of control," the head of a United Nations scientific panel warned Monday, according to Slate.com.
Climate change will worsen problems that society already has, such as poverty, sickness, violence and refugees, according to the report by the Intergovernmantal Panel of Climate Change, Slate.com reported.
And on the other end, it will act as a brake slowing down the benefits of a modernizing society, such as regular economic growth and more efficient crop production, it says, according to Slate.com.
"In recent decades, changes in climate have caused impacts on natural and human systems on all continents and across the oceans," the report says, Slate.com reported. If society doesn't change, the future looks even worse, it says: "Increasing magnitudes of warming increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive, and irreversible impacts."
While the problems from global warming will hit everyone in some way, the magnitude of the harm won't be equal, coming down harder on people who can least afford it, the report says, according to Slate.com. The effects of global warming will increase the gaps between the rich and poor, healthy and sick, young and old, and men and women.
The report also notes that one major area of risk is that with increased warming, incredibly dramatic but ultra-rare single major climate events, sometimes called tipping points, become more possible with huge consequences for the globe, Slate.com reported.
Global warming is triggered by heat-trapping gases, such as carbon dioxide, that stay in the atmosphere for a century, according to Slate.com. Much of the gases still in the air and trapping heat came from the United States and other industrial nations.
China is now by far the No. 1 carbon dioxide polluter, followed by the United States and India, Slate.com reported.
Storms like 2013's Typhoon Haiyan, 2012's Superstorm Sandy and 2008's ultra-deadly Cyclone Nargis may not have been caused by warming, but their fatal storm surges were augmented by climate change's ever rising seas, according to Slate.com.
In the cases of the big storms like Haiyan, Sandy and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the poor were the most vulnerable, Slate.com reported.
The report talks about climate change helping create new pockets of poverty and "hotspots of hunger" even in richer countries, increasing inequality between rich and poor, according to Slate.com.
The report is based on more than 12,000 peer reviewed scientific studies, Slate.com reported. Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, a co-sponsor of the climate panel, said this report was "the most solid evidence you can get in any scientific discipline."
