Scientists Urge Global Action on Clean Energy

The United Nations Foundation and Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, has released the results of a two year study which is calling for drastic reductions in fossil-fuel emissions around the world and rapid increases in spending on clean-energy research.

The report concludes that global warming is “unequivocal”. If nothing is done global temperatures could rise 11 degrees by 2100.

It says the United Nations must better prepare to help tens of millions of “environmental refugees,” and it urges all governments to discourage new building on land less than one meter — about 39 inches — above sea level.

The report called “Confronting Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable and Managing the Unavoidable,” argues that “two starkly different futures diverge from this time forward.”

It continues: “Society’s current path leads to increasingly serious climate-change impacts… The other path … will reduce dangerous emissions, create economic opportunity, help to reduce global poverty, reduce degradation and carbon emissions from ecosystems, and contribute to sustainability. Humanity must act collectively and urgently to change course through leadership at all levels of society. There is no more time for delay.”
“This report defines the seriousness and urgency that must characterize global efforts to respond to the unfolding and far-reaching challenge of climate change. Confronting Climate Change makes clear that we must start immediately to stabilize and then substantially reverse the trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions,” argues Timothy Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation.

A full copy of the report can be downloaded at www.confrontingclimatechange.org.