Last year alone, human activities — such as burning coal for cheap power — led to our planet warming by 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.34 Fahrenheit), according to a new report. If we continue pumping heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at our current rate, scientists say we have about five years before we drive global warming beyond the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) set by the Paris Agreement.
Once again, the findings show that human-driven global warming continues to heat the planet — and that's even though climate action has somewhat slowed the overall rise in greenhouse gas emissions. "Global temperatures are still heading in the wrong direction and faster than ever before," Piers Forster, who is a climate scientist at the University of Leeds in the U.K., said in a statement provided by the university, whose scientists spearheaded the new report.
