UN scientists issue warning as global warming surpasses 1.5C and glaciers disappear

Global warming above 1.5C will have irreversible consequences for our planet, UN scientists have warned. Researchers called for governments around to take action on the climate as quickly as possible - and said the current targets set in the Paris Accords in 2015 are already too high for Earth's glaciers and ice caps. The two new studies released by The International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) found Switzerland 's glaciers lost 20% of their volume in just five years.

And a devastating ice and rock avalanche on the Nepal-China border in August which killed 1,300 people was singled out as a "a foretaste" of future tragedies as the world's ice deposits continue to weaken and disappear. To see more of the stories you love from The Mirror and to find them easily in Google then make us your preferred source. Free and easy-to-do, just click on the link here to find more from The Mirror at the top of your feed.

James Kirkham, a former Cambridge geologist and lead author of one of the reports, wrote: "To limit the damage caused by ice loss in the polar and mountainous regions of the globe... temperatures must be brought well below 1.5 degrees as quickly as possible. "Every additional fraction of a degree and every year spent above this threshold will lead to more devastating consequences." He added: "This year, we’ve already seen one of the largest and most deadly ice rock avalanches ever recorded, on the Nepal-China border – it killed thousands of people and left damage equivalent to 10% of Nepal’s GDP in a single event.

"Switzerland has lost 20% of its glacier ice in the last five years, and thousands of glaciers worldwide are expected to become extinct in the coming decade, every single year." The findings were published ahead of next week's COP31 summit in Antalya, Turkey, where representatives from 196 nations including Prime Minister Andy Burnham will meet to discuss the climate crisis. A target of 1.5 degrees Celsius (1.5°C) was set at the conference in 2015, though current emissions trajectories show the world is on track to exceed the threshold by 2030 - and reach a disastrous 2.6C by the end of the century.

Should emissions continue on a path towards 2.6C, ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica would melt dramatically, at a speed of around six times faster than 30 years ago, the scientists found. As well as causing sea level rises that could displace millions of people around the world, the oceans at both poles would also absorb more carbon, leading to increasing acidification that disrupts marine life. Glaciers would only preserve about 70% of their current volume over the next few centuries even if global warming is limited to 0.8C, the report found, as they are still responding to temperature increases already brought on by burning fossil fuels.