Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
In the summer of 2006, the release of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth
turned climate change into an issue of public concern in the United States.
he domestic debate that the ilm helped inspire escalated over the next
year to a point where energy policy suddenly became a vote swaying issue
in American politics. his development became a topic of interest for the
rest of the world because signs of a weakening in American reticence toward
climate change mitigation would have signiicant repercussions for the 128
nations that were struggling to keep the Kyoto Protocol from falling apart. 4
In October 2006, a comprehensive independent study called the Stern
Review , commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the United
Kingdom, presented an assessment of the anticipated impacts of climate
change. As a foreboding sign of the content which would follow, the report
began by describing climate change as “the greatest and widest ranging mar-
ket failure ever seen” (p. i). 5 he report concluded that the long-term costs
of climate change were expected to be so great that early action to abate
global warming was the most cost-efective alternative. It estimated that
the net beneits (beneits less costs) from reducing greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions to achieve a stabilization level of 550 parts per million (ppm) by
2050 would be in the neighborhood of US$2.5 trillion.
In February 2007, the irst of four reports that comprise the Fourth
Assessment Report of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) was released. he goal of this irst report was to “describe progress
in understanding of the human and natural drivers of climate change, observed
climate change, climate processes and attribution, and estimates of projected
future climate change.” 6 Overall, the report upgraded international agreement
on the likelihood of human activities being responsible for global warming from
likely (66% or greater probability) to very likely (90% or greater probability). he
data presented in the report was unexceptional in the sense that it mirrored
data already available in the public domain; however, the report was signiicant
in that it represented a consensus view of UN member nations. Symbolically,
it represented humanity`s formal acceptance of culpability for causing climate
change, because it was endorsed by all United Nation (UN) member nations.
In April 2007, the second of four reports that comprise the Fourth
Assessment Report of the IPCC was released. his second report focused on
“current scientiic understanding of impacts of climate change on natural,
managed and human systems, the capacity of these systems to adapt and
their vulnerability.” 7 Comparatively, the report was less comprehensive than
the Stern Review in its assessment of the current and anticipated economic
impacts of climate change on humanity and global ecosystems. However, it
did serve to solidify the emergent consensus that climate change was sig-
niicantly harming hydrological, terrestrial, and biological systems.
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