The United Nations has released a report on climate change which warns that decisions made in the next few years will determine the environment that children will grow up in.
The report suggests that carbon emissions must be reduced by almost half by 2030 and to zero by 2050 to prevent a future with increased floods, fires, crop failures, forced migration, and infectious disease outbreaks.
The report also reaffirms the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 and suggests that wealthy countries like Canada should reach net-zero even sooner, by 2040. Protecting natural ecosystems and using solar and wind power are solutions to the crisis that are already in use.
The report emphasizes that climate change is a story of inequality, with the effects being extremely unequal, with the poorest and most underdeveloped regions being the most vulnerable. The report concludes that the actions pledged by nations so far are insufficient to keep the world within a critical guardrail of 1.5 degrees of warming, and would result in 2.8 degrees of warming by the end of the century.