Scientists warn that 1.5°C of warming will likely have catastrophic impacts. Extreme weather events – from floods and storms, to droughts and heatwaves – bringing huge social and economic costs. Melting ice causing sea levels to rise, flooding coastal cities and whole island nations. Water scarcity and crop failures causing food shortages and unprecedented movements of people within countries and across national borders. Huge, irreversible damage to nature, potentially leading to mass extinctions.
And this could happen within a human lifespan, leaving our children and grandchildren to cope with the results.