Citing "clear and growing" human influence on the climate system, a United Nations report issued yesterday has warned that if left unchecked, climate change will increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems.

Participants at press conference to launch Synthesis Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), including (centre) UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri. Copenhagen, Denmark on  Nov. 2, 2014. [UN Photo/Amanda Voisard]

Echoing that dire warning, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that if the world maintains its "business as usual" attitude about climate change, the opportunity to keep temperature rise below the internationally target of 2 degrees Celsius, "will slip away within the next decade."

"With this latest report, science has spoken yet again and with much more clarity. Time is not on our side…leaders must act," declared the UN chief, in Copenhagen, Denmark on an official visit that included a press conference to launch the final installment Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

According to a press release from the panel, the so-called "Synthesis Report" confirms that climate change is being registered around the world and warming of the climate system is unequivocal. Since the 1950s many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia.

"Our assessment finds that the atmosphere and oceans have warmed, the amount of snow and ice has diminished, sea level has risen and the concentration of carbon dioxide has increased to a level unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years," said Thomas Stocker, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group I, which participated in the compilation of the final report along with two other expert working groups.

Calling the report the "most comprehensive assessment of climate change" ever carried out, the Secretary-General urged worldwide action in light of its stark findings, saying that "even if emissions stopped tomorrow, we will be living with climate change for some time to come."

He went on to say that the report found that the world is largely very ill-prepared for the risks of a changing climate, especially the poor and most vulnerable who have contributed least to this problem.

"I have seen for myself those rapidly melting glaciers, most recently in Greenland together with the Prime Minister of Denmark," he said emphasizing that though he is not a scientist, he has traveled the world over, "to see the impact for myself and…add to the voices of scientists in a political way, as a common man."