Worst case climate change scenario trajectories are being realized

Scientists Issue Six Blunt Warnings on Climate Change

Crossposted from Climate and Capitalism, March 12, 2009

“Rapid, sustained, and effective mitigation based on coordinated global and regional action is required to avoid dangerous climate change…. Inaction is inexcusable.”

From the Final Press Release issued by  the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges & Decisions held in Copenhagen this week.

Key Message 1: Climatic Trends

Recent observations confirm that, given high rates of observed emissions, the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised. For many key parameters, the climate system is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived. These parameters include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, ocean and ice sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events. There is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.

Key Message 2: Social disruption

The research community is providing much more information to support discussions on dangerous climate change. Recent observations show that societies are highly vulnerable to even modest levels of climate change, with poor nations and communities particularly at risk. Temperature rises above 2C will be very difficult for contemporary societies to cope with, and will increase the level of climate disruption through the rest of the century.

Key Message 3: Long-Term Strategy

Rapid, sustained, and effective mitigation based on coordinated global and regional action is required to avoid dangerous climate change, regardless of how it is defined. Weaker targets for 2020 increase the risk of crossing tipping points and make the task of meeting 2050 targets more difficult. Delay in initiating effective mitigation actions increases significantly the long-term social and economic costs of both adaptation and mitigation.

Key Message 4 – Equity Dimensions

Climate change is having, and will have, strongly differential effects on people within and between countries and regions, on this generation and future generations, and on human societies and the natural world. An effective, well-funded adaptation safety net is required for those people least capable of coping with climate change impacts, and a common but differentiated mitigation strategy is needed to protect the poor and most vulnerable.

Key Message 5: Inaction is Inexcusable

There is no excuse for inaction. We already have many tools and approaches — economic, technological, behavioural, management — to deal effectively with the climate change challenge. But they must be vigorously and widely implemented to achieve the societal transformation required to decarbonise economies. A wide range of benefits will flow from a concerted effort to alter our energy economy now, including sustainable energy job growth, reductions in the health and economic costs of climate change, and the restoration of ecosystems and revitalisation of ecosystem services.

Key Message 6: Meeting the Challenge

To achieve the societal transformation required to meet the climate change challenge, we must overcome a number of significant constraints and seize critical opportunities. These include reducing inertia in social and economic systems; building on a growing public desire for governments to act on climate change; removing implicit and explicit subsidies; reducing the influence of vested interests that increase emissions and reduce resilience; enabling the shifts from ineffective governance and weak institutions to innovative leadership in government, the private sector and civil society; and engaging society in the transition to norms and practices that foster sustainability. 

Comment from on the Climate and Capitalism site

Keith Farnish on March 13th, 2009 7:23 am Unwritten Key Message 7: The system that created all the problems has to be undermined to prevent it from keeping us inert consumers. without this undermining process only a select few will ever be able to reconnect with what it means to really be human.

Related articles:

The Daily Mail – Doomsday: How 4C temperature rise this century will change world beyond recognition and threaten human survival. This link comes with a slide show and many related articles 

The Globe and Mail – Scientists warn global warming accelerating.

Especially important reading:

The Independent, March 13 – Lord Stern on global warming: It’s even worse than I thought

Clipped from this article:

“Then and now: How Stern’s view changed

Temperatures

A central assumption of the 2006 Stern Report was global temperatures would rise by between 2C and 3C over the current century if nothing was done to counter global warming.

Stern also mentioned the possibility of a 4C rise.

Yesterday, Stern said 4C, 5C, 6C and even 7C degree rises were a real possibility by the end of the 21st century, taking the world into new territory – agriculture would be destroyed and life impossible in many areas.

Costs

Stern created a sliding scale in the 2006 report which measured the costs of doing nothing on climate change. At the upper limit was the chance the damage would amount to 20 per cent of global Gross Domestic Product – a fifth of the world’s wealth.

Yesterday, Stern revised his estimate saying the cost would be 50 per cent higher “or more” than the previous highest guess – risking a third of the world’s wealth or a 30 per cent plus reduction in consumption per head.”