The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—its Sixth Assessment Report—was released on Monday, August 9, 2021, concluding that the threshold of approximately 1.5°C of global warming can be reached around 2030, roughly a decade earlier than the timeframe which was anticipated several years before.
At roughly 1.2°C of warming, the summer of 2021 has already brought numerous severe weather and climate-related events around the world, including extreme heat in Canada, severe drought in Iran, destructive rainfall and flooding in China, and major wildfires in Greece and California.
The AR6 finds out that atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations are higher than at any time in at least two million years, while methane and nitrous-oxide concentrations are higher than at any time in at least 800,000 years.
These findings and the consequences of earlier warnings have not been acted upon. The report indicates that global mean temperature is on course to approach 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels around 2030 under the trajectories being discussed.