Cool Kids For A Cool Climate

 

The Challenge of Climate Change by Sir David King

I see climate change as the greatest challenges facing Britain and the World in the 21st century. In a speech given by the Prime Minister on 27 April 20041 , he agreed that in the long term it will be the single most important issue we face as a global community.

Sir David King is the UK government's Chief Scientific Advisor

The weight of evidence for climate change, and the causal link with greenhouse gas emissions, most notably carbon dioxide, is in my view now unarguable. The evidence comes on many fronts: melting icesheets, receding glaciers, and increased and more frequent flooding to cite just a few. Over the past century the global climate has warmed by an average of 0.6C, with much of this seen over the past 30 years. The science is clear that this rise in temperatures will continue and will accelerate, leading to a rise in the range of 1.4C to almost 6C by 2100. At the same time, global average sea levels are also predicted to rise, by between 9 to 88 cm by 2100.

The Third Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)2 concluded that "most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to increasing concentrations of man made greenhouse gases".

At over 370 parts per million, we are already living with levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that have not been seen on earth for at least 420 thousand years. The current level is already well beyond that seen in the atmosphere during Earth’s “warm periods” between ice ages, and is consistent with the Earth’s “hot periods”, such as around 60 million years ago when all ice on the planet melted and when mammals would have found Antarctica one of the most comfortable places to live.

The UK's climate has followed the global trend towards higher temperatures, with Central England temperatures rising by almost 1 °C over the last century. New records have been set in the 230-year Central England temperature series in the last 12 years, including the warmest decade (the 1990s) and two of the warmest years (1990 and 1999, joint with 1949).

This is a global problem requiring a global solution. Climate change is no respecter of boundaries, and the ideas and solutions for meeting challenges thrown up by climate change will not emerge from any single country, however well resourced. Only by acting together can countries tackle the problem.

However we can all help to make a difference. If we reduce the amount of energy we use and make our energy consumption more efficient, we will reduce the impact that we, as individuals, have on the environment. All of us can make a difference by using energy more efficiently and at the same time save ourselves money on our fuel bills.

Useful links

More information on the actions the Government is taking to prevent climate change through encouraging energy efficiency can be found by going to the Climate Change Programme and Sustainable Energy pages on the Defra website. Defra also provides useful information on climate change for schools, with a wide range of information targeted at 7-11 year olds through to A-level students. It has an especially good page on what you can do as an individual to reduce climate change - http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/schools/12-16/info/what.htm

Written by Sir David King, especially for Cool Kids For A Cool Climate

1. http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/page5716.asp
2. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: http://www.ipcc.ch

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