Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
7 - Climate change
Graeme Pearman
The best available evidence indicates that global warming is already occurring and
that it will continue throughout this century as a consequence of the human produc-
tion of greenhouse gases. The projected temperature increases are capable of causing
massive changes in the distribution of ecosystems across the face of the earth. The chal-
lenge is to produce a portfolio of changes to our energy system that will bring about
global emission reductions of 70 to 80 per cent over this century. At the same time, we
must meet the needs of the two billion who do not currently enjoy access to usable
energy, and those of another two billion who soon will be added to the global popula-
tion. An appropriately literate community is a key prerequisite if Australia is to tackle
this agenda for change.
The earth's climate has always varied, and this has had substantive
impacts on the evolution and distribution of ecosystems. What is different
about this century is that, for the first time, we have been able to observe that
a new change has commenced and anticipate, albeit at this stage approxi-
mately, that change will continue through the century.
Climate change is, perhaps, the first truly global challenge for sustaina-
bility. This chapter is about some of the components of that challenge and
questions whether we are well prepared. It is, unapologetically, an idiosyn-
cratic scientist's view and purposefully provocative.
Climate change and the challenges for science
In the late 1980s the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) was established. Its purpose was to periodically assess the
contemporaneous science-base of climate change and to report this in a
fashion that would assist policy developers around the world to make deci-
sions concerning the importance of the issue, and the nature of intervention
