The Latest Breaking News on Tuesday briefing: Why 2023 was a watershed year for the climate crisis

Australia and other developed countries must achieve net-zero emissions a decade earlier than most have promised, the UN chief says.

Drastic and deep greenhouse has emissions cuts are needed, it said

Extreme heat is already killing people around the world while increasing disease, displacement and loss of livelihood and culture, scientists say

Reading the latest international climate report can feel overwhelming. It describes how rising temperatures caused by increasing greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are having rapid, widespread effects on the weather, climate and ecosystems in every region of the planet, and it says the risks are escalating faster than scientists…

It’s easy to feel pessimistic when scientists around the world are warning that climate change has advanced so far, it’s now inevitable that societies will either transform themselves or be transformed. But as two of the authors of a recent international climate report, we also see reason for optimism.

The world is in deep trouble on climate change, but if we really put our shoulder to the wheel we can turn things around. Loosely, that’s the essence of today’s report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The world’s climate scientists have issued what one expert says is a “final warning” before global warming exceeds 1.5C, threatening planetary systems human life depends on.

Cutting greenhouse gas emissions rapidly and immediately will save lives, livelihoods and ecosystems around the world, scientists say. And there are lots of ways to go about it.

Despite the scale and urgency of the climate crisis, it's not too late to secure a “liveable and sustainable future for all” if immediate action is taken to slash greenhouse gas emissions and ensure climate justice for vulnerable people, a major UN climate report published Monday says.

The choice in the new IPCC report is stark: what we do in the next few years will determine our fate for millennia

Since 1992, the IPCC has highlighted rising greenhouse gases, marking their ‘widespread and unprecedented’ impacts by 2014