A global temperature increase of close to 1.5 degrees Celsius “is already locked into the earth’s atmospheric system by past and predicted greenhouse gas emissions,” said the World Bank in releasing a report on likely impacts in three regions of the world. “We cannot continue down the current path of unchecked, growing emissions,” said World Bank president Jim Kim in a statement. “The good news is that there is a growing consensus on what it will take to make changes to the unsustainable path we are currently on.”
The report says climate change will mean longer droughts and more extreme weather in the Caribbean and Latin America. In the Middle East and northern Africa, extreme heat will make some areas uninhabitable and reduce the amount of farmland. Higher temperatures will shift the growing season in central Asia and worsen droughts in eastern Europe, it said.