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The science of climate change

• What is climate change?
• The economics of climate change
• Long-term impact of climate change
• Effects already visible
• An unfair deal
• The human cost of climate change

What is climate change?

Carbon dioxide levels are higher than at any time in the past 650,000 years. This is caused by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal). The ten warmest years on record have all occurred since 1990.

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The economics of climate change

Recent government reports (including The Stern Review) have shown it will be much cheaper to take steps now to prevent further climate change rather than attempt to deal with the consequences later.

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Long-term impact of climate change

There is an approximate 50 year time-lag between greenhouse gases being emitted and their effect on the climate being felt, so the climatic effects we are experiencing today are the result of the carbon burned in the 1950s and before.

Even if we changed the whole of the world’s energy policy and stopped producing any greenhouse gases tomorrow, the world in which our children and grandchildren live in is going to be a very different place.

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Effects already visible

• Ice covers are melting, the Arctic ice sheet is thinning, and most of the world’s glaciers are retreating. This is already contributing to sea level rise.
• Sea levels have risen by between 10 and 20 cms over the last century, but could rise by as much as 7m in the future.
• Increasing occurrences of extreme weather such as fiercer storms and hurricanes, extreme heat waves, floods and drought. For example, 52,452 people died across Europe as a result of the July 2003 heat wave, Europe’s hottest summer for 500 years
• Coral bleaching is on the rise with warmer temperatures severely harming coral reefs, turning healthy reef into white/ grey skeleton.
• The rate of extinction of species is now 1,000 times higher than the background rate (the rate that would be expected without human influence).

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An unfair deal

Over 96 per cent of disaster-related deaths in recent years have taken place in developing countries. It is the world's poorest countries that will be hit hardest by climate change, even though the rich countries are responsible for 75 per cent of all emissions.

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The human cost of climate change

Climate change is a human problem. Already, according to the World Health Organization, it causes 150,000 deaths a year, globally.

The impact of climate change on humans will include: more water shortages and heat-stress deaths; more deaths and damage induced by storms, floods and landslides; a dramatic increase in 'environmental refugees'; the expansion of some infectious diseases such as malaria and the disruption of agriculture.

The Stern Review estimates that floods from rising sea levels could displace up to 100 million people; melting glaciers could cause water shortages for one in six of the world's population, and droughts may create tens or even hundreds of millions of ‘climate refugees’.

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