The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC) Tuesday, urging action to protect human rights.

The report focuses on the impact of global climate change on individuals who live in mountainous, coastal and Arctic regions. Roughly 1.42 billion people live in communities that rely on the oceanic and cryospheric ecosystems.

According to the report, there has been a global temperature increase of one degree celsius since the Industrial Revolution, which has caused issues like increased ocean acidity, melting glaciers and more dangerous severe weather events.

The report aims to educate governments and individuals about the importance of confronting global climate change today, and what swift action can accomplish.

SROCC provides the best available scientific knowledge to empower governments and communities to take action, embedding that scientific knowledge on unavoidable change and plausible futures into their own context, to limit the scale of risks and climate impacts.

If governments and communities take action, the report contends that the the oceans and cryospheres can be maintained as vital resources and ecosystems.