A new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that some of the impacts of climate change are now irreversible and there are limits to how much humans can adapt to a warming world.
Climate change’s burdens are falling unequally on the richest and poorest, says the report. The world’s most vulnerable people are found to be in mostly low-income nations in West, East and central Africa, South Asia and South America, as well as those living in island states and Arctic regions. Deaths from floods, droughts and storms in those regions were found to be 15 times higher than the least vulnerable areas, mostly high-income nations such as Canada and the UK, between 2010 and 2020.
Overall, the economic impact of a rapidly warming world has been adverse, according to the report. But there have been economic positives regionally, including for farming, tourism and lower energy demand.