A UN-backed panel is set to present its findings on the effects of climate change next week, in a step towards the creation in 2015 of an international protocol for dealing with the phenomenon.
The scientists and government representatives who make up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will meet behind closed doors in Yokohama, Japan, on Tuesday.  They are to debate a draft summary of the report on the effects of climate change on humans and nature, which takes into account the IPCC assessment of the scientific aspects released in September last year.
The draft, copies of which have been leaked to the media, gives a grim forecast for the coming decades, where droughts, food shortages, deadly heatwaves and storms would pose the greatest threats.
It shows a global food supply under pressure, as yields on staple crops fall to 2% per decade, outstripping demand projected to increase some 14% per decade until 2150.
The draft forecasts economic losses of 0.2 to 2% of income if temperatures rise over 2.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The new report includes a new chapter on human conflict as a result of climate change.
The panel also assesses effects on specific communities such as New Orleans, devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Researchers have drawn on case studies such as the Paris heatwave of 2003 that resulted in an estimated 15,000 deaths and the 1995 Chicago heatwave.
The IPCC report in September last year warned that humans were primarily responsible for global warming, which has led to a faster than predicted rise in sea levels, rapidly melting glaciers and ice sheets.
On the ground, in the air, in the oceans, global warming is “unequivocal”, the September report warned. It added that a pause in warming over the past 15 years was too short to reflect long-term trends. The panel said that continued emissions of greenhouse gases would cause further warming and changes in all aspects of the climate system.
To contain these changes will require “substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions”.
A third IPCC report, which will outline how to curb climate change, is due for release next month.  The IPCC reports influence the international debate on climate change and efforts to tackle global warming. A summit in Paris next year will focus on the creation of new international climate treaty.
The warning signs are there. And they are quite clear. A united global initiative is the need of the hour. The regular reports and summits should lead to such an outcome.