Climate change impacts are larger, more rapid and worse than previous estimates, but humanity has the means to tackle the problem. 

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides the most comprehensive overview of climate change across the globe and is the definitive stocktake of the IPCC’s work over the last seven years.

The IPCC Synthesis Report leaves no doubt that climate change poses a clear and present danger to people and to natural systems.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for developed countries, including Australia, to achieve net zero emissions a decade earlier than most have pledged. 

He warns that urgent action is needed to save humanity from the catastrophic consequences of overshooting the Paris Agreement 1.5 degree warming limit. 

The IPCC report suggests that there is still an outside chance of averting the worst effects of climate change. However, emissions are still rising, and fossil fuels continue to attract more public and private investment than is spent on mitigating climate change.

The UN has outlined an acceleration action plan that asks developed countries to reach net zero as close as possible to 2040, which is ten years earlier than Australia's current target. It is also calling on OECD countries to commit to “no new coal and the phasing out of coal by 2030” and block the exploitation of new and existing oil and gas reserves.

The IPCC report makes it clear that the Earth's existing stock of fossil fuel infrastructure is enough to max out the carbon budget for 1.5 degrees. 

“We will end up with 1.5 degrees of warming, without additional abatement,” says University of Melbourne Professor Malte Meinshausen, one of the report's Australian authors. 

Meanwhile, Australia has fallen behind on climate change research and development. Report editor and Australian National University Professor Mark Howden says that Australia's spend on climate change is well below that of its peers in the OECD, and its adaptation efforts are poorly funded and piecemeal. 

He said that Australia is lagging significantly in the adaptation domain and has gone from a leader to a "laggard" on climate change.

Despite the challenges, there are some glimmers of hope. 

Professor Frank Jotzo of the Australian National University says that while emissions are still rising, the pace has slowed. 

Falling costs for technologies such as solar and wind power provide a technical opportunity to halve global emissions between now and 2030 at incremental costs of less than $US100 per tonne of CO2, which is in the rough order of the EU emissions trading price. 

If policy effort is consistently applied right across the world, global emissions could be halved, he said.