Three years left to limit warming to 1.5C, leading scientists warn - 2025
The Earth could be doomed to breach the symbolic 1.5C warming limit in as little as three years at current levels of carbon dioxide emissions.
That's the stark warning from more than 60 of the world's leading climate scientists in the most up-to-date assessment of the state of global warming.
Nearly 200 countries agreed to try to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C above levels of the late 1800s in a landmark agreement in 2015, with the aim of avoiding some of the worst impacts of climate change.
But countries have continued to burn record amounts of coal, oil and gas and chop down carbon-rich forests - leaving that international goal in peril.
"Things are all moving in the wrong direction," said lead author Prof Piers Forster, director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds.
"We're seeing some unprecedented changes and we're also seeing the heating of the Earth and sea-level rise accelerating as well."
These changes "have been predicted for some time and we can directly place them back to the very high level of emissions", he added.
Reef in Bermuda. Healthy coral reefs have declined by about 50% in the past 40 years Many of the Caribbean's coral reefs could vanish in the next 20 years, according to a report published by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Data from more than 35,000 surveys suggests that habitats have declined by more than 50% since the 1970s. The report's authors believe that over-fishing and disease is mainly to blame. They say the trend could continue if nothing is done, but with protection the reefs could bounce back. Carl Gustaf Lundin, director of IUCN's Global Marine and Polar Programme, said the findings were alarming. "The reefs support a number of different countries and populations," he said. "Tourism is one of the biggest industries, and the health of the reef is essential to the well-being of many of the people living there. And of course they are immensely beautiful and wonderful places as well." Reef overrun with algae The reefs are becoming over-run with algae, which suffocates the coral. The report, which was also authored by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, looked at data collected between 1970 and 2012 from 90 reef habitats and is the most comprehensive assessment of corals in this region.
This photo taken on 13 November 2013 shows a timber company's vehicle driving down a dirt road in the forests of in Berau, East Kalimantan. Researcher say deforestation has led to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and a loss of Indonesia's biodiversity. A new study has shown that Indonesia lost about 60,000 sq km of virgin forest - an area close to the size of Ireland - over a period of 12 years. The rate of deforestation has increased so much that Indonesia has for the first time surpassed Brazil in the rate of its clearance of tropical forests. The study was published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Scientists monitored the growth of deforested land in Indonesia between 2000 and 2012 using satellites. Picture of Riau province's rate of deforestation. Satellite imagery of Indonesia's Riau province showed wetland forest loss (in red) and forest degradation (in blue) over the study period They say the land was cleared to make way for palm oil plantations and other farms. By 2012, the loss of primary forest every year in Indonesia was estimated to be higher than that in Brazil, said scientists. In that year, Indonesia lost 8,400 sq km of forest compared to Brazil which lost 4,600 sq km.
Changing the way farmers plough their lands could have a big impact on global emissions of greenhouse gases. Changing farming practices could play an important role in averting dangerous climate change says the UN. In their annual emissions report, they measure the difference between the pledges that countries have made to cut warming gases and the targets required to keep temperatures below 2C. On present trends there is likely to be an annual excess of 8 to 12 gigatonnes of these gases by 2020. Agriculture, they say, could make a significant difference to the gap. This is the fourth such report, compiled by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) in conjunction with 44 scientific groups in 17 countries. It says the world needs to reduce total emissions to 44 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2020 to keep the planet from going above the 2C target, agreed at a UN meeting in Cancun in 2010. But when all the pledges and plans made by countries are added together, they show an excess of between 8 and 12 gigatonnes per annum in seven years time, very similar to last year's report. To put it in context, 12 gigatonnes is about 80% of all the emissions coming from all the power plants in the world right now. The authors highlight a number of ways in which this gap can be closed, including tightening the rules for counting emissions and expanding the scope of pledges already made. They believe around half the gap could be closed in this way.
Arctic ice melt 'like adding 20 years of CO2 emissions'
The loss of Arctic ice is massively compounding the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, ice scientist Professor Peter Wadhams has told BBC Newsnight.
White ice reflects more sunlight than open water, acting like a parasol. Melting of white Arctic ice, currently at its lowest level in recent history, is causing more absorption. Prof Wadhams calculates this absorption of the sun's rays is having an effect "the equivalent of about 20 years of additional CO2 being added by man".
Reef in Bermuda. Healthy coral reefs have declined by about 50% in the past 40 years Many of the Caribbean's coral reefs could vanish in the next 20 years, according to a report published by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Data from more than 35,000 surveys suggests that habitats have declined by more than 50% since the 1970s. The report's authors believe that over-fishing and disease is mainly to blame. They say the trend could continue if nothing is done, but with protection the reefs could bounce back. Carl Gustaf Lundin, director of IUCN's Global Marine and Polar Programme, said the findings were alarming. "The reefs support a number of different countries and populations," he said. "Tourism is one of the biggest industries, and the health of the reef is essential to the well-being of many of the people living there. And of course they are immensely beautiful and wonderful places as well." 
Reef overrun with algae The reefs are becoming over-run with algae, which suffocates the coral. The report, which was also authored by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, looked at data collected between 1970 and 2012 from 90 reef habitats and is the most comprehensive assessment of corals in this region.
This photo taken on 13 November 2013 shows a timber company's vehicle driving down a dirt road in the forests of in Berau, East Kalimantan. Researcher say deforestation has led to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and a loss of Indonesia's biodiversity. A new study has shown that Indonesia lost about 60,000 sq km of virgin forest - an area close to the size of Ireland - over a period of 12 years. The rate of deforestation has increased so much that Indonesia has for the first time surpassed Brazil in the rate of its clearance of tropical forests. The study was published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Scientists monitored the growth of deforested land in Indonesia between 2000 and 2012 using satellites. 
Picture of Riau province's rate of deforestation. Satellite imagery of Indonesia's Riau province showed wetland forest loss (in red) and forest degradation (in blue) over the study period They say the land was cleared to make way for palm oil plantations and other farms. By 2012, the loss of primary forest every year in Indonesia was estimated to be higher than that in Brazil, said scientists. In that year, Indonesia lost 8,400 sq km of forest compared to Brazil which lost 4,600 sq km.
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