The Earth is hurtling toward a warmer climate at a quickening pace, a Nobel-winning U.N. scientific panel said in a landmark report released Saturday, warning of inevitable human suffering and the threat of extinction for some species.<\/p>\n
After five days of sometimes tense negotiations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change adopted its fourth and final report this year, along with a summary, on the science of climate change and the effects of human-produced greenhouse gases.<\/p>\n
It lays out blueprints for avoiding the worst catastrophes – and various possible outcomes, depending on how quickly and decisively action is taken.<\/p>\n
The document says recent research has heightened concern that the poor and the elderly will suffer most from climate change; that hunger and disease will be more common; that droughts, floods and heat waves will afflict the world’s poorest regions; and that more animal and plant species will vanish.<\/p>\n