A NEW UN report being published today will set out a stark message on the state of the climate crisis, raising pressure on governments meeting for the crucial COP26 talks in the autumn.

The report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the first part of a review of current scientific knowledge about how the world is warming due to human activity.

It is the first such global assessment since 2013, when scientists found that global warming was “unequivocal” and human influence on the climate was clear, with the majority of warming since the 1950s extremely likely to be down to human activity.

The message in the latest report is expected to be even stronger, with warnings of how soon global temperatures could rise 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – a limit that countries have pledged to try to avoid breaching because of the dangerous consequences for humanity.

Fabrice Leveque, head of policy at WWF Scotland, said: “This is a stark assessment of the frightening future that awaits us if we fail to act on climate change.

“It’s clear that keeping global warming to 1.5C is hugely challenging and can only be done if urgent action is taken globally to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect and restore nature.

“Scotland is not immune from the disastrous consequences of climate change.

“As predicted, we are already seeing wetter and warmer weather which could weaken our economy – jeopardising food production, as well as risking communities with flooding.

“With less than 100 days to go until world leaders arrive in Glasgow for the most important climate conference since the Paris Agreement in 2015, this is the moment the Scottish Government must demonstrate real global leadership, bringing forward more innovative policies to cut carbon and close the gap between its ambitions and its actions.”

Drawing on more than 14,000 scientific papers, the review is set to provide the latest knowledge on past and potential future warming, how humans are changing the climate and how that is increasing extreme weather events and driving sea-level rises.

A summary report is being published after being approved in a process involving scientists and representatives of 195 governments that has taken place online over the last two weeks.

That means governments have signed off on the findings – and pressure will be on them to take more action at COP26.

Professor Piers Forster, from Leeds University and one of the scientists involved in the process, said: “This report will be able to say a whole lot more about the extremes we are experiencing today, and it will be able to be categoric that our emissions of greenhouse gases are causing them and they are also going to get worse.”