Two new reports issue urgent calls for action as climate change heats up.

The world is on the brink of catastrophic warming, that’s the conclusion of a new report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delivered a blunt assessment of the challenge, calling on wealthy countries to move up their goals of achieving carbon neutrality by a decade as close to year 2040 as possible, in order to, as he put it, “diffuse the climate time bomb”.

Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency says that more damaging carbon dioxide was emitted last year than in any year on record in more than a century. Extreme weather events intensified last year’s carbon dioxide emissions. Climate scientists warn that energy users must cut emissions dramatically to slow the dire consequences of global warming.

Joining the discussion:

• John Sterman is a Professor and the Director of the Sloan Sustainability Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  
• Valerie Karplus served as Director of the MIT-Tsinghua China Energy & Climate Project. She’s currently an Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
• Michael Shank is Director of Engagement at the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance. 
• Changhua Wu is CEO of the Beijing Future Innovation Center.

CO2 emissions from coal grew by 1.6% in 2022 – more than offsetting the drop in emissions from natural gas amid the energy crisis

Emissions from oil were up 2.5%, driven mainly by a rebound in air travel. But they are still below the 2019 high 👉 https://t.co/Cyjyadd9tt pic.twitter.com/whxVGnYlL5

— International Energy Agency (@IEA) March 23, 2023

The world is facing a looming global water crisis that threatens to “spiral out of control” as increased demand for water and the intensifying impacts of the climate crisis put huge pressure on water resources, a UN report has warned. https://t.co/hy7TdeIw2O

— CNN (@CNN) March 23, 2023