UN climate report urges world to adapt now, or suffer later

'Delay means death' says UN secretary general Guterres; change impacting world faster than anticipated, breaching 1.5C threshold will cause irrepairable damage, says report

Climate change is upon us and humanity is far from ready, the United Nations climate panel warned in a major report on Monday.

Noting that nearly half the world's population was already vulnerable to increasingly dangerous climate impacts, the report calls for drastic action on a huge scale: A third to a half of the planet needs to be conserved and protected to ensure future food and freshwater supplies. Coastal cities need plans to keep people safe from storms and rising seas. And more.

"Adaptation saves lives," U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said with the report's release. "As climate impacts worsen