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Government under pressure after UN report calls for urgent climate action

GOVERNMENTS must take action to protect lives from “dangerous” climate change, a major United Nations-backed report warned today.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report said carbon emissions must be cut to zero by 2050 and impacts of global warming will be less extreme if temperature rises are curbed at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels without reaching 2°C.

It will require “fast and far-reaching” changes to power generation, industry, transport, buildings and potential shifts in lifestyle such as eating less meat, the report said.

Existing legal targets require 80 per cent emission cuts in Britain by 2050.

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas said the world was “at a tipping point on the edge of complete climate breakdown.”

She added: “Our own government is pushing us towards that tipping point with carbon intensive and ecologically destructive projects like airport expansion, fracking and HS2 — while slashing support for renewables and continuing to subsidise fossil fuels.

“Ministers have a choice: they can keep coating business-as-usual policies in a green veneer and watch as floods and heatwaves become the norm.

“Or they can embrace the opportunities to create a fairer, healthier, safer society that comes with the economic overhaul we need.”

The world has seen 1°C of warming so far, with consequences such as more extreme weather already being felt, the report said.

Impacts ranging from increased droughts and water scarcity to extreme weather, the spread of diseases such as malaria, economic damage and harm to yields of maize, rice and wheat will be less severe at 1.5°C than 2°C.

Promises made by countries to cut their emissions up to 2030 will not limit global warming even if action is massively scaled up after the end of the next decade, the report warns.

Shadow business and energy secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey said the government was “way off course” to meet existing climate targets and had pushed fracking for shale gas, which is set to go ahead this week.

She said the report makes clear that avoiding dangerous climate change will require “a transformational effort.”

She added: “That is precisely what Labour is offering — a plan to rapidly decarbonise our energy system as part of a green jobs revolution, and a long-term target of net zero emissions before 2050.”

Shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner has said he hopes the government “steals Labour ideas.”

He said: “It’s the right choice for both our economy and our environment. By investing in this transformation we can create thousands of high-skilled, well paid and unionised jobs.”

The report also stresses the need for measures to take carbon out of the atmosphere, including planting forests and capturing the carbon and storing it underground.

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