Saturday, August 16, 2014

IPCC and climate change risks: what would you do?



The latest Climate Change Report from the IPCC argues that human interference with the climate system is occurring, and climate change poses risks for human and natural systems. The report identifies eight major risks with high confidence, and says that each of these risks contributes to one of more of the five “reasons for concern” (RFC) the authors identify:

  1. Unique and threatened ecosystems and cultural systems.
  2. Extreme weather events.
  3. Uneven distribution of impacts, with disadvantaged people and communities facing greater risks.
  4. Global aggregate impacts, for example global biodiversity loss.
  5. Large-scale singular events, such as Arctic ecosystems or warm water coral reefs reaching an irreversible tipping point.
The report isn’t totally pessimistic, and it concludes that transformations in economic, social, technological, and political decisions and actions can enable climate-resilient pathways. It doesn’t say what the favoured options should be, and of course a mix of approaches should be taken, but we’d like your opinion on what the dominant options should be. For the sake of simplicity, we’ve labelled the options “government”, meaning intervention through regulation or taxation for example; “technology”, for example new ways to produce energy or reduce natural resource use; “behaviour”, for example consuming less or recycling more; or “markets”, for resources that become too expensive will be abandoned in favour of other solutions. See full Article: http://oecdinsights.org/2014/03/31/ipcc-and-climate-change-risks-what-would-you-do/