Rising temperatures, along with ocean acidification, pollution, and thawing permafrost threaten the Arctic—and the more than four million people who inhabit it, including 10 percent who are Indigenous. But, as UNEP acting executive director Joyce Msuya noted Wednesday, “What happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic.”

Elaborating, Msuya said: “We have the science; now more urgent climate action is needed to steer away from tipping points that could be even worse for our planet than we first thought.”

These worrisome tipping points include the thawing of permafrost, or ground that traps carbon as long as it remains frozen. Comparing permafrost thaw to awakening a “sleeping giant,” the report warns that the process “could release large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and derail efforts to meet the long-term goal of the Paris agreement.”

In addition to demanding that world leaders work together to meet the Paris agreement’s goals, the report also calls for various locally focused efforts, including: adaptation that integrates and respects local and Indigenous knowledge; strengthening global mechanisms to prevent chemical and plastic pollution in the region; international coordination to protect migratory species; and further research that examines climate change, pollution, and biodiversity in the Arctic.

Politicians, experts, and activists responded to the report with both alarm and renewed demands for rapidly reforming unsustainable human activities, such as burning fossil fuels, that lead to global warming:

“The urgency to achieve the goals of the Paris agreement is clearly manifested in the Arctic, because it is one of the most vulnerable and rapidly changing regions in the world,” Finland’s environmental minister Kimmo Tiilikainen said in a statement. “We need to make substantial near-term cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, black carbon, and other so-called short-lived climate pollutants all over the world.”

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