TEHRAN (Iran News) – Arid and semi-arid countries, like Iran, should prepare plans for social and economic development based on the climate change goals, Mostafa Mohaghegh, a senior official at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), has said.
According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global surface temperature will continue to increase until at least the mid-century under all emissions scenarios considered,
Mohaghegh, who is the senior coordinator at Asia and Pacific Centre for Development of Disaster Information Management of UNESCAP, told IRNA on Thursday.
The IPCC has reported that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land and has found that changes to the climate system at an unprecedented scale have occurred in every region across the globe.
The report assesses that global surface temperature will continue to increase until at least the mid-century under all emissions scenarios considered. In particular, the report concludes that global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C will be exceeded during the 21st century unless deep reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions are made in the coming decades.
In the near term (2021-2040), 1.5°C is more likely than not to be exceeded under every emissions scenario. For every additional 0.5°C of global warming, there are clear increases in the intensity and frequency of heatwaves, heavy precipitation (extreme daily precipitation events are projected to intensify by about 7% for each 1°C of global warming) as well as agricultural and ecological droughts in some regions.
With increasing CO2 emissions, carbon sinks are projected to be less effective at slowing the increase of atmospheric CO2, with the proportion of emissions taken up decreasing with increasing emissions, leaving a higher proportion of emitted CO2 in the atmosphere.
Iran has been suffering droughts for decades. It has been expedited over the last three decades.
The plateau of Iran is a chief victim of global warming which its main culprits have been pumping gas emissions into the atmosphere through their unclean technology.
According to the World Meteorological Organization’s multiannual forecast, in the next five years, Iran’s average rainfall will decline by 75 percent, and the temperature rises by 50-75 percent compared to the long-term average.
According to the national center for drought and crisis management, since the beginning of the current water year (September 23, 2020), precipitation has declined by 41 percent compared to the long-term average and 53 percent compared to the same period last year.
