Key messages
- Multi-agency report highlights challenges and opportunities
- Summit of the Future decisions: a choice between breakthrough or breakdown
- Increasing climate change impacts reverse development gains
- Gap between aspiration and reality widens
- New technologies and innovation are potential game-changers
- Natural and social sciences are part of wider transdisciplinary approach
The science is clear. We are far off track from achieving vital climate goals. The impacts of climate change and hazardous weather are reversing development gains and threatening the well-being of people and the planet. Greenhouse gases and global temperatures are at record levels. The emissions gap between aspiration and reality remains high. Under current policies, there is a two thirds likelihood of global warming of 3 °C this century.
The latest United in Science 2024 report offers much-needed grounds for hope. It explores how advances in natural and social sciences, new technologies and innovation enhance our understanding of the Earth system and could be game changers for climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and sustainable development.
Compiled by a consortium of United Nations agencies, meteorological organizations and scientific and research bodies, the report also embraces input from young people and early career scientists who are agents of change for the future.