Three Climate Change Charts from UN Report

 

thinkprogress.com/climate

 

The overall message of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s newest report is simple: a rapid shift to renewable energy is needed to avert catastrophic global warming. The science behind that message, however, is less simple.

 

In an attempt to make the message more clear, the IPCC’s report — produced by 1250 international experts and approved by every major government in the world — uses a number of charts to get its point across. Though the charts themselves are very complex, they provide a way to visualize increases in human-caused greenhouse gases, where those gases come from, and what they could do to our climate.

 

Here are three of the most sobering charts from that report, and what they tell us about the state of our warming world.

These charts show where we are headed and which areas of human activity are creating the most greenhouse gases.