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Another month, another frightening report. Or at least that is how it feels when it comes to the latest thinking on global climate change.

When it comes to the various crises afflicting the world, we need to keep a sense of perspective.

Yes, the war in Ukraine is appalling and Russia has to be stopped. Yes, the Covid-19 pandemic is dreadful and we must do everything we can to ensure as many people in Third World countries can get vaccinated and be protected from the virus as possible. Yes, global poverty and the inequality of wealth are unconscionable and are driving many other calamities in impoverished nations.

What each of these has in common is that only certain groups of people or countries are primarily affected by what is going on, though, of course, that does not make the situation any less appalling.

It would be so much better if we could just focus on solving each of these in turn, although it has to be said that humankind’s efforts to resolve any one of these, or stop them from happening in the first place, has been patchy at best.

However, looming over all these catastrophes is the one which will have an effect on, and is affecting, every single one of the 7.966 billion people on the planet, a population growing by more than 200,000 a day.

If the peoples of the Earth cannot get their heads around the need to do something significant now against climate change — and heaven knows there have been enough warnings over the past several decades, and enough head-burying in the sand — those other calamities, and the motivating forces behind them, will be further amplified.

There will be greater pressure on shrinking food and water supplies from increasing temperatures and a growing population, and more competition for land, resources and a "home" for those displaced by rising sea levels, leading to further conflict and war.

The latest report out this week from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the third and final section of the most recent review of climate science compiled by thousands of scientists around the world.

Each report is accompanied by increasingly dire warnings, which those who remain sceptical or who want to pretend climate change isn’t happening may see as scaremongering.

However, they are nothing of the sort. The conclusions of each report reflect a constant recalibrating of the worrying facts and likely outcomes, a honing of the accuracy of the experts’ projections.

This latest review puts it plainly — in what is being touted as a "final warning" to governments and people of the world, scientists say there has to be a "now or never" sprint to a low-carbon economy if we have any chance of averting a climate disaster.

The Guardian reports the IPCC predicting it is now "almost inevitable" that warming this century will rise above the 1.5degC lift above pre-industrial levels established in the Paris Agreement in 2015 as a tipping point beyond which climate breakdown starts to become irreversible.

The scientists say greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025. It is still possible to halve them this decade, to avoid the 1.5degC level, but it would require a huge amount of effort at the governmental level and by businesses and individuals.

The burning of coal has to be phased out, methane emissions cut by one-third and investment in a low-carbon global economy is six times lower than it should be, the report says.

The report makes for sombre but salutary reading. How many more times do we have to be told we are on the brink of unalterable climate change, with its rippling repercussions on world ecosystems and biodiversity, before we actually do enough to make a difference?

Kiwi atmospheric chemist Dave Lowe first warned about rising southern hemisphere carbon dioxide levels almost 50 years ago. Why has it taken so long to do something about it?