IPCC report a call to action for all, especially countries like India: Co-author

India should bolster its adaptation and mitigation efforts in line with the warnings issued in the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as the country is going to bear the devastating effects of global warming, say two prominent co-authors of the key United Nations document.

Aditi Mukherjee and Dipak Dasgupta, the Indian co-authors of the report released on Monday, said rising sea levels are a matter of concern for the Indian subcontinent as it would affect the ecology and livelihood of millions of people living in coastal areas.

“This report (Synthesis Report of the IPCC) is a call for action for all countries, especially countries like India, which are very vulnerable to climate change given their location in the tropics. The report provides a menu of climate actions, both mitigation and adaptation actions, which India can implement based on its national circumstances,” Mukherjee told PTI in an online interview.

According to the report, which presents a sort of urgency in implementing policies that could bring down the emissions, the world is already only a few tenths of a degree away from the global target of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming, with the global surface temperature reaching 1.1°C above 1850–1900 in 2011–2020. Global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase, with unequal historical and ongoing contributions arising from unsustainable energy use, land use and land-use change, lifestyles, and patterns of consumption and production across regions, between and within countries, and among individuals,” the report said.