Saudi Ambassador to US Discusses WAVE Initiative

Saudi Ambassador to US Discusses WAVE Initiative

World on Brink of Environmental Tipping Points, UN Says 

A dead fish along the dry river banks of the Mississippi river in West Memphis, on October 13, 2023. (AFP)

The world is heading towards a series of environmental "tipping points" that could cause irreversible damage to water supplies and other life-sustaining systems, the research arm of the United Nations warned on Wednesday.

Climate change and the overuse of resources have put the world on the brink of six interconnected tipping points that "could trigger abrupt changes in our life-sustaining systems and shake the foundation of societies," the UN University's Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) said.

"Once these thresholds are passed, the system fails to function as it normally would, and you get new risks cascading out, and these new risks can transfer to other systems," said UNU-EHS researcher Jack O'Connor, lead author of the report.

"We should be expecting these things to happen because in certain areas they are happening already."

The Interconnected Disaster Risks report, published ahead of COP28 climate talks next month, identified accelerating rates of extinction, groundwater depletion, glacial melt and extreme heat as the major interconnected threats.

It warned that 1 million plants and animals could be wiped out "within decades",