Three of the UK's most prominent scientific organisations have combined to deliver an urgent call to politicians to take action in Copenhagen to prevent 'dangerous, long-term and potentially irreversible climate change'.

 

The Royal Society, the Met Office and the Natural Environment Research Council (Nerc) said evidence of man-made climate change has 'strengthened significantly' since the 2007 Assessment Report of the UN's International Panel on Climate Change.

 

In a joint statement they said scientific data underpinning negotiations for a new deal to cut the emissions which cause rising temperatures was 'very strong'.

 

Global carbon dioxide levels were continuing to rise, the decade to 2009 had been warmer on average than any in the past 150 years, Arctic summer ice cover declined sharply in 2007 and 2008 and the changes in rainfall were at the upper limits of what scientists had predicted, they said.

 

Professor Julia Slingo, chief scientist of the Met Office, Professor Alan Thorpe, chief executive of Nerc, and Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society, also said there was increasing evidence of damaging climate events already happening.

 

'Year on year the evidence is growing that damaging climate and weather events - potentially intensified by global warming - are already happening and beginning to affect society and ecosystems,' they said.

 

The evidence includes:

 

• In the UK, heavier daily rainfall leading to local flooding such as in the summer of 2007;
• Increased risk of summer heat waves such as the summers of 2003
  across the UK and Europe;
• Around the world, increasing incidence of extreme weather events with unprecedented levels of damage to society and infrastructure;
• Sea level rises leading to dangerous exposure of populations in, for example, Bangladesh, the Maldives and other island states; and
• Persistent droughts, leading to pressures on water and food resources.

 

'In the absence of action to mitigate climate change, we can expect much larger changes in the coming decades than have been seen so far,' they warned. 'Without co-ordinated action on greenhouse gas emissions, the impacts on climate and civilisation could be severe.'

 

Related links

Full text: Climate science statement, Guardian 24 November 2009