Code Red for Humanity

It is "code red for humanity".

This dire warning from UN secretary general, Antonio Guteeres, headlines the statement he made on the release of Part I of the Sixth Assessment report (AR6) of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in August last year.

He continued: "The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk".

Leaked sections of  yet-to-be-released Parts of the sixth IPCC report call, strikingly, for massive cut backs in energy use across all economic sectors (Part III, "Mitigation"). What is required "is fundamental structural changes at the global level" (and every other level) in production and consumption systems: "Transformative change " instead of incremental changes - [i.e. the Greta moment LG]. 

The leaked report also notes that in many political-economic critics' view; "The character of social and economic development produced by the nature of capitalist society (is) ultimately unsustainable."[1]

 

  

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[1] "Notes from the Editors", Monthly Review vol.73 no.5, October 2021