The Critical Decade

Today (!), the Climate Commission (report author is Will Steffen) released its report on climate science titles “The Critical Decade – Climate Science, risks and responses”. The report has been reviewed by CSIRO, the Bureau of Meterology, the university sector, as well as the Science Advisory Panel of the Climate Commission. The purpose – A review of what the climate science is telling us about the need to act on climate change, and the risks of a changing of changing climate to Australia. The findings – Climate change is real, climate change has social, economic and environmental impacts,humans are responsible, and that we need to act now.

WOW! Who would have thought

Allegedly, the risk have never been clearer… sounds familiar. I wonder where I have heard that before?!

The key messages of the report are:

1. There is no doubt that the climate is changing. The evidence is overwhelming and clear.
2. We are already seeing the social, economic andenvironmental impacts of a changing climate.
3. Human activities – the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation – are triggering the changes we are witnessing in the global climate.
4. This is the critical decade. Decisions we make from now to 2020 will determine the severity of climate change our children and grandchildren experience.

This is not new. Yet another report that summarises information that has been in the public domain for years, but needed to be translated into Australian. Because if it was not researched here, it does not exist.

Now Australia will spent the next month arguing about this report, commission another report to verify the findings and another to refute it, and debate those before everyone starts at 0 again. This debate is going round and round and round and round…

Meanwhile in the UK and Denmark…