“No excuse for inaction” on climate change

The 2,500 delegates attending the 'Scientific Congress Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions', also concluded there was no excuse for inaction.

In a statement detailing the key messages drawn out from the three-day event that closed yesterday, they said: “We already have many tools and approaches – economic, technological, behavioural, management – to deal effectively with the climate change challenge. But they must be vigorously and widely implemented to achieve the societal transformation required to decarbonise economies.”

They argued that a wide range of benefits would flow from decisive action, including green jobs, reductions in the health and economic costs of climate change and the restoration of ecosystems.

The statement, which broke with normal scientific convention of not commenting on policy, said recent observations confirmed that the worst-case scenario on climate change were already being realised. “For many key parameters, the climate system is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived,” it said.

It warned that weaker targets on reducing carbon emissions by 2020 would make the task of meeting 2050 targets more difficult and risked crossing “tipping points” on climate change. Many of those gathered at the conference felt that based on current trends catastrophic temperature rises of five to six degrees by the end of the century were likely, way above the two degrees over pre-industrial levels that the EU has set as a limit.

The conference concluded that those most at risk from climate change were poor nations and communities and that therefore an “effective, well-funded adaptation safety net” was required for those people least capable of coping with climate change impacts.

To meet the challenges of climate change, the scientists at the conference agreed that it was incumbent on everyone in business and society to tackle inertia and for governments to respond to a growing public desire for them to act on climate change.

“To achieve the societal transformation required to meet the climate change challenge, we must remove implicit and explicit subsidies; reducing the influence of vested interests that increase emissions and reduce resilience; enabling the shifts from ineffective governance and weak institutions to innovative leadership in government, the private sector and civil society; and engaging society in the transition to norms and practices that foster sustainability,” the statement said.

The full conclusions of the conference will be published in June and will be delivered to decision-makers ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in December.