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IPCC Report 2014: U.N. Climate Change Panel Urges Instant Action From World Leaders to Curb Global Warming

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned world leaders that even immediate action will have a relatively small impact.

According to Reuters, the IPCC, a United Nations group of environmental scientists, advised world leaders Sunday to put forth a more urgent effort to curb global warming. Even still, by 2030, the IPCC said the world may need to turn to untested technology to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

"It does not cost the world to save the planet," Ottmar Edenhofer, a German scientist who serves as co-chair of the U.N.'s IPCC, said at a news conference in Berlin.

Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC, told Reuters the cost of cleaning up the planet will skyrocket if it is delayed to 2030. The current report calls for the U.N. to come to an agreement by the end of 2015.

"We don't have the luxury of time," Pachauri said. "We will have to move quickly and with an unprecedented level of international cooperation."

If countries can limit average annual temperature rises, the world could drastically cut down on manmade events like droughts, forest fires and heat waves. Without any action, the world's average temperature could rise by as much as 4.8 degrees Celsius by the year 2100.

The IPCC finally released its 2,000-page report in full after years of leaked sections and revisions. The panel is comprised of environmentalists and scientists from all over the world.

"There is a clear message from science: To avoid dangerous interference with the climate system, we need to move away from business as usual," Edenhofer said, according to the Washington Post.

Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate's Climate Change Clearinghouse, issued a statement obtained by the Post urging the adoption of necessary policies or face dire consequences.

"Our planet and our economies can have a bright future by engaging in a clean-energy race, or we can do nothing and have a bleak future for the human race," he said. "We must enact the policies that move our planet away from the dirtiest fuels like coal and tar sands and unleashes the human entrepreneurial spirit in the name of clean energy and job creation."

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