IPCC Special Report "Global Warming of 1.5°C" - Summary for teachers
Are you a teacher looking to discuss climate change in your classroom? The "Summary for Teachers of the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C" is the perfect resource for you. Designed to make scientific concepts accessible, this summary helps you explain the phenomenon of climate change to your students, explore its impacts, and understand how to address them.
What You Will Learn in This Summary for Teachers
Understanding Climate Change
Learn about the fundamental concepts of climate change, including the mechanisms of global warming and the impacts of human activities on our planet.
Impacts at 1.5°C and 2°C
Discover the differences between the impacts of climate change at 1.5°C and 2°C of warming, and how these levels of warming affect ecosystems, biodiversity, and human societies.
Limiting Warming to 1.5°C
Explore strategies to limit global warming to 1.5°C, including necessary mitigation and adaptation actions, and understand the challenges and opportunities associated with these efforts.
Key Points
- Human Activities and Global Warming: Human activities have caused a global temperature increase of 1.0°C over the past 150 years. If greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, we are likely to reach 1.5°C of warming between 2030 and 2052.
- Differences Between +1.5°C and +2°C: A warming of 2°C would have significantly greater impacts than a warming of 1.5°C, including more intense heatwaves, higher sea levels, and more severe biodiversity losses.
- Heatwaves: More frequent and intense heatwaves.
- Precipitation Extremes: More frequent heavy rainfall events.
- Sea Level Rise: Higher sea levels, exposing millions more people to flooding.
- Biodiversity: Greater risk of species extinction and loss of habitats.
- Adaptation and Mitigation: Limiting warming to 1.5°C requires rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban, and industrial systems. This involves reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing adaptive capacity to climate impacts.
Click here to access the "conceptual framework" of this IPCC special report "Global warming of 1.5°C".