Rising sea levels and catastrophic storm surges could displace 280 million people from the world’s coastlines and produce “misery on a global scale” unless countries speed up their efforts to control the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for the climate crisis, according to a draft United Nations report obtained last week by Agence France-Presse.

The report, the latest produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), warns that “the same oceans that nourished human evolution are poised to unleash misery on a global scale unless the carbon pollution destabilizing Earth’s marine environment is brought to heel,” AFP reports. “Without deep cuts to man-made emissions, at least 30% of the northern hemisphere’s surface permafrost could melt by century’s end, unleashing billions of tonnes of carbon [or equivalent] and accelerating global warming even more.”

The 900-page scientific assessment concludes that “destructive changes already set in motion could see a steady decline in fish stocks, a hundred-fold or more increase in the damages caused by superstorms, and hundreds of millions of people displaced by rising seas,” the news agency adds. And “as the 21st century unfolds, melting glaciers will first give too much and then too little to billions who depend on them for fresh water.”