Climate change is accelerating at a frightening pace as global efforts to slash emissions continue to fall short.
That's a warning from the world's foremost climate scientists in a major new report, which focuses on the actions needed to limit global temperature rises.
The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC recommends that to limit temperature rises, global coal use must be slashed by between 65 and 95 per cent.
Global oil use should also be scaled back by between 15 and 50 per cent.
The IPCC report again stresses the need to limit global warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Conservationist and Climate Council member Greg Bourne is a former BP executive.
He says some climate change impacts are already unavoidable.
"If we can limit to 1.5 we have a fairly good understanding of where the climate will stabilise to. But we already have locked-in some significant sea level rises that will occur, even if we stay at the 1.5 mark."
