The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has today, Friday 27th September 2013, published its latest report on climate change science. It again confirms that climate change is real and is caused by human activity.
Conclusions of the report include:
- Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia.
- Evidence for human influence of climate change has grown since publication of the previous IPCC report. It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.
- The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased
- The atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years.
- CO2 concentrations have increased by 40% since pre-industrial times, primarily from fossil fuel emissions and secondarily from net land use change emissions.
Tom Ballantine, Chair of the Stop Climate Chaos Scotland coalition said:
“The latest IPCC report leaves it in no doubt that governments must end their indecision and act now if we are to stand any chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change with its devastating impacts for humanity.
Scotland has set a positive example to other nations by adopting world leading targets to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Other countries should follow Scotland’s lead and commit to similarly ambitious climate laws.
The Scottish Government must back up that example by putting in place the necessary policies to ensure we meet our climate targets and move quickly to a low carbon economy.”
