The world is in danger of hitting the point of no return for five of Earth's natural systems because of human-caused climate change, a team of 200 scientists said on Wednesday on the sidelines of the United Nations' climate summit.
The report on so-called “tipping points” — moments when the Earth has warmed so much that certain side effects become irreversible — looks at 26 different systems and points to five of them — the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, the dying off of warm-water coral reefs, the thawing of permafrost and impacts to a North Atlantic ocean current — as close to triggering.
