There’s still time to avert runaway climate change, but only with immediate, effective action to reduce carbon pollution, according to the leaked draft of the upcoming synthesis report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “The catastrophic changes in climate that we are voluntarily choosing to impose on our children and grandchildren—and countless generations after them—cannot plausibly be undone for hundreds of years or more,” Romm writes. “Future generations can’t simply adapt to the ruined climate we are in the process of handing over to them. Either we start cutting carbon pollution ASAP, or we should just stop pretending we are a rational, moral species.” The synthesis report will no doubt be watered down by participating governments before its official release, but what Romm calls the “unvarnished language” was leaked to the Associated Press and other media.
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