Scientists: Rapid, sustained, effective action required to avoid dangerous climate change

Indybay.org: The International Scientific Congress on Climate Change, comprising 2,500 delegates from nearly 80 countries, met in Copenhagen from 10-12 March and issued a six point final summary warning

…Key Message 1: Climatic Trends – Recent observations confirm that, given high rates of observed emissions, the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are 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.

…Key Message 2: Social disruption – The research community is providing much more information to support discussions on "dangerous climate change". Recent observations show that societies are highly vulnerable to even modest levels of climate change, with poor nations and communities particularly at risk.

…Key Message 3: Long-Term Strategy – Rapid, sustained, and effective mitigation based on coordinated global and regional action is required to avoid "dangerous climate change" regardless of how it is defined. …Delay in initiating effective mitigation actions increases significantly the long-term social and economic costs of both adaptation and mitigation.

….Key Message 4 - Equity Dimensions – …An effective, well-funded adaptation safety net is required for those people least capable of coping with climate change impacts, and a common but differentiated mitigation strategy is needed to protect the poor and most vulnerable.

Key Message 5: Inaction is Inexcusable – …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.

….Key Message 6: Meeting the Challenge – …[W]e must overcome a number of significant constraints and seize critical opportunities. These include reducing inertia in social and economic systems; building on a growing public desire for governments to act on climate change; removing 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.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard's "Inspiration," 1769