UN declares “code red for humanity”

A report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned Monday that recent changes in the climate are rapid, intensifying, and unprecedented in thousands of years. More than 200 scientists collaborated on the 3,000-page report. They said warming is already accelerating the rise in sea levels and worsening extremes such as heatwaves, droughts, floods, and storms. And they said all of these trends will get worse.

Is it really that bad? Environmentalist and Hoover Institution fellow Bjorn Lomborg notes the UN routinely warns of imminent environmental catastrophe, pointing to reports from 2019 all the way back to 1972. Lomborg says climate change caused by humans is a real but manageable problem.

Dig deeper: From the WORLD archives, read Julie Borg’s analysis of the 2019 IPCC report.