Sean Kilpatrick/CP NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh NDP Parliamentary Leader Guy Caron speak to media on Parliament Hill on Sept. 17, 2018.

OTTAWA — The Green Party and the NDP have joined a Liberal backbench MP's call for an emergency debate to address what Canada can do to avoid catastrophic climate change. UPDATE: House of Commons Speaker Geoff Regan agreed to grant an emergency debate on Canada's efforts to combat climate change in the wake of a troubling report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Last week, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a frightening report outlining how the world is headed towards irreversible heating of the planet —and the food shortages, droughts, extreme weather, vanishing coastlines, human deaths, and species extinction it entails — without drastic decreases in carbon emissions. The IPCC's Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC notes that the world is likely to surpass the 1.5ºC degree goal set in the Paris climate agreement around 2040 — though more than a fifth of the world's population already lives in areas that are 1.5ºC warmer than in the pre-industrial age (around 1850 to 1900). Watch: McKenna defends climate plan after auditor general's report

In a letter to House of Commons Speaker Geoff Regan last Thursday, Toronto Grit MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith wrote that the report makes it clear that the world only has a few years to ramp up efforts to reduce global warming, otherwise the planet is on course for a disastrous 3°C of warming. Slight global temperature differences may not seem like much but the IPCC report — which was co-authored by more than 200 experts and cites more than 6,000 references — notes that a change of 0.5ºC is significant. At 1.5°C, 70 to 90 per cent of coral reefs disappear. At 2°C, all the coral reefs, which sustain about 25 per cent of all marine life, will vanish. "The impacts of climate change are being felt in every inhabited continent and in the four oceans," the report notes. "The more global temperature rises, the more frequent, severe, and erratic the impacts will be, and adaptation may not protect against all risks." In a letter written Friday to Regan, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said MPs owe it to Canadians, the international community, and our children, to ensure they do everything they can to address this global emergency. "Time is not on our side," she wrote. More from HuffPost Canada: Andrew Scheer Grilled On When He'll Release Climate Plan

Canada Must Beef Up Climate Goals To Help Thwart Catastrophe: UN

David Suzuki Doubles Down On Criticism Of 'Hypocritical' Catherine McKenna NDP parliamentary leader Guy Caron wrote in a letter Monday that to meet the required carbon emissions levels outlined by the UN panel, "Canada's emissions will need to be reduced by almost half – far below our current performance." Indeed, the report notes that the planet will surpass 1.5°C even if countries abide by the pledges they made in Paris two years ago to cut emissions. Meeting the new target will require a Herculean effort. Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching net zero around 2050 in order to stick to 1.5°C, the report stated. "The Panel has made clear that preventing a single extra degree of heat could make a life-or-death difference for millions of people across the globe," Caron states. "It also firmly states that our current course of action is not working." McKenna responds to 'sobering' UN report An emergency debate, he argued, is needed to allow MPs to address this critical situation and to discuss how Canada can take a leadership role in this climate crisis. In a Facebook Live conversation over the weekend, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna called the report "sobering reading." "We know that in the North, in the Arctic, we are already way above 1.5 degrees of warming, we are at probably two or three degrees of warming," she said, noting that Canadians everywhere are seeing the impact of climate change. From the summer extreme heat in Quebec and Ontario "where people literally died," she said, to the forest fires in British Columbia "burning brighter and stronger than before."