The leading scientists of 13 nations yesterday called for significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The science academies of the G8 plus those of Brazil, Mexico, India, China and South Africa issued a joint statement on "Climate Change Adaptation and the Transition to a Low Carbon Society." See this from Reuters. The statement targets the G8 Summit to take place in Japan in early July. (I wrote about last year's G8 Summit and its implications for the climate change debate here.)
The scientists said "We have advised prompt action to deal with the causes of climate change and cautioned that some climate impacts are inevitable. However, progress in reducing global greenhouse gas emission has been slow." On adaptation, the joint statement said "Climate change is a pressing issue for today. Action on adaptation is needed now and failure to respond poses a significant risk."
They further noted: "The transition to a low carbon society requires: setting standards; designing economic instruments and promoting energy efficiency across all sectors; encouraging changes in individual behaviour; strengthening technology transfer to enable leapfrogging to cleaner and more efficient technologies; and investing strongly in carbon-removing technologies and low-carbon energy resources: nuclear power, solar energy, hydroelectricity and other renewable energy sources. These points are also stressed in the InterAcademy Council report." (See Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future from October.)
Scientists are conservative, folks, if you didn't already know that. They are trained to tread carefully, to look at all sorts of variables, to reject unsound hypotheses and tainted evidence. Yet the world's leading science academies, echoing the call of the IPCC, are calling on the world community to get it into another gear, to step it up, as Bill McKibben and his colleagues would say, to address climate change now and much more vigorously.
For more on the work of two of these academies, see Climate & Global Change @ the National Academies (for the US) and this from the UK's Royal Society.
For another recent perspective, from four top scientists, and published in "Nature Reports – Climate Change," see Squaring up to reality. "Both emissions reduction and adaptation will need to be much stronger than currently planned if dangerous global impacts of climate change are to be avoided." This sounds precisely the same notes as the message from the national academies.
