- Tunisia voting ends as Saied eyes re-election with critics behind bars
- Florida braces for Milton, FEMA head slams 'dangerous' Helene misinformation
- Postecoglou slams 'unacceptable' Spurs after 'terrible' loss at Brighton
- Marmoush double denies Bayern outright Bundesliga top spot
- Rallies worldwide call for Gaza, Lebanon ceasefire
- New 'Joker' film, a dark musical, tops N.America box office
- Man Utd stalemate keeps Ten Hag in danger, Spurs rocked by Brighton
- Drowned by hurricane, remote N.Carolina towns now struggle for water
- Vikings hold off Jets in London to stay unbeaten
- Ahead of attack anniversary, Netanyahu says: 'We will win'
- West Indies cruise to T20 World Cup win over Scotland
- Man Utd fire another blank in Aston Villa stalemate
- Lewandowski treble powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Russian activist killed on front line in Ukraine
- Openda strike briefly sends Leipzig top of Bundesliga
- Goal-shy Man Utd have to 'step up', says Ten Hag
- India bowl out Bangladesh for 127 in T20 opener
- Madueke rescues Chelsea in draw with 10-man Forest
- Beckett's belief rewarded as Bluestocking storms to Arc glory
- Trump on the stump, Harris hits airwaves in razor-edge US election
- Flash flooding kills three in northern Thailand
- Kaur leads India to victory over Pakistan in Women's T20 World Cup
- Juventus held by Cagliari after late penalty drama
- In France's Marseille, teen 'stabbed 50 times' then burned alive
- Ruthless Gauff beats Muchova in straight sets to win China Open
- India restrict Pakistan to 105-8 in Women's T20 World Cup
- England target repeat of Pakistan Test whitewash
- Penrith Panthers win fourth straight NRL title after downing Storm
- Weary Sinner happy for day off after battling into Shanghai last 16
- Pakistan's Masood warns England still a force without Stokes
- Madrid's Carvajal to miss several months after serious knee injury
- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
- Sabalenka targets world number one and Wuhan hat-trick
- Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
- Bagnaia sets 'example' with Japan MotoGP win to cut gap on Martin
- Intense Israeli bombing rocks Beirut ahead of war anniversary
- Mozambique vote: no suspense but some disillusion
- Austrian rapper channels anti-racist rage in Romani hip-hop songs
- Ohtani magic powers Dodgers over Padres in MLB playoff thriller
- Five of the best: Pakistan-England Test thrillers
- Man sets arm on fire as marches across US mark Gaza war anniversary
- Vietnam's young coffee entrepreneurs brew up a revolution
- Trump rallies at site of failed assassination: 'Never quit'
- Too hot by day, Dubai's floodlit beaches are packed at night
- Is music finally reckoning with #MeToo?
- Fans hail Trump's 'guts' as he returns to site of rally shooting
- Lebanon state media says Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Miami on track for MLS record points after win in Toronto
- Monaco take top spot in Ligue 1 with win at Rennes
- Madrid beat Villarreal to level Liga leaders Barca
British professor elected to lead UN climate panel in key decade
British professor Jim Skea was elected to lead the UN's climate expert panel Wednesday, taking the helm of the organisation charged with distilling the best science to inform global policy in a critical decade for humans and the planet.
Skea, a Professor of Sustainable Energy at Imperial College London who co-chaired the report on curbing planet-heating emissions in the latest round of assessments, was elected chair at a meeting of the 195-nation organisation in Nairobi.
"Climate change is an existential threat to our planet," he told delegates.
With impacts already sweeping the planet -- from devastating floods to blistering heatwaves -- the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) plays a key role in the growing scientific knowledge on climate change.
Skea, 69, takes on the role as the world is already a third of the way through a crucial decade for climate action, which will set the course of warming and impacts that will ripple out for decades or even centuries.
He will oversee hundreds of experts -- who work on a voluntary basis -- and be charged with ensuring the smooth functioning of the institution.
Last year, the IPCC's key final report -- synthesising a host of major assessments since 2018 -- was postponed for "operational reasons", meaning it was not ready before crucial UN climate negotiations in November.
That document, dubbed a "survival guide" for the world, was finally released in March this year.
It said the world will cross the key Paris Agreement goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius warming since pre-industrial times in the early 2030s and urged dramatic reductions in planet-heating emissions.
- 'Forceful advocates' -
Skea, who has nearly forty years of climate science experience, outlined the main priorities for his tenure as improving inclusiveness and diversity, protecting the IPCC's integrity and policy relevance and making sure it has the best available science to work with.
He succeeds South Korean economist Hoesung Lee, who is stepping down after nearly eight years at the helm.
The final vote was between Skea and Brazil's Thelma Krug, an IPCC vice-chair and former researcher at her country's national space institute, who was one of two candidates vying to be the first woman chair of the organisation.
"The role of scientists in this global crisis now surpasses the conventional confines of research and analysis," said Tasneem Essop, of campaign group Climate Action Network International.
"They are being called upon to serve as forceful advocates for practical solutions, actively championing measures based on equity and justice that will effectively tackle the escalating climate change crisis."
- 'Challenges are huge' -
Under the 2015 Paris treaty, nations promised to collectively cap the rise in the planet's average temperature at "well below" 2C, and at 1.5C if possible.
To get to that more ambitious target, the IPCC says emissions need to drop 43 percent this decade.
Yet they continue to rise.
With assessments normally published every five to seven years, there are concerns that the next round of IPCC reports will come too late to sufficiently galvanise the global response.
That will put the focus on potentially more timely special reports like the influential 2018 one focused on a 1.5C cap on warming, which Skea also had a leadership role on and that made it clear that this aspirational goal was a better bet for a climate-safe world.
Olivier Boucher, climatologist at the Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace, said the next IPCC leader may have to be the one to finally say that the world cannot limit temperature rises to 1.5C in time -- but would have to try to reverse the warming after breaching that threshold.
"The IPCC is really going to have to change its approach and focus much more on overshoot scenarios," he told AFP.
In a recent interview with Spain's Climatica, Skea underscored that humans still have power over the future trajectory of warming.
"The challenges are huge, but the key thing is to not become paralysed into inaction by a sense of despair," he said.
F.Ferraz--PC