For Immediate Release
September 27, 2013
The scientific case for taking urgent action to address climate change has been beyond dispute for at least two decades. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report, released today, confirms with greater certainty what communities around the world know from first-hand experience: “Human influence on the climate system is clear.” Climate change is unequivocal, it is unprecedented, and human activities─primarily the burning of fossil fuels─are to blame. Limiting climate change demands immediate, dramatic and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that we cannot achieve on our current path. Continued inaction in the face of this danger will cause climate catastrophes far greater than any we’ve yet witnessed.
Accordingly, this latest IPCC report should bring renewed urgency to efforts to confront climate change at the national and international levels. Just as importantly, however, it should send a clear signal to decision-makers at all levels─not just policymakers but CEOs, shareholders and investors alike─that they can no longer ignore the climate impacts and the risks associated with a business as usual approach.
The scientific community can now state with greater than 95% certainty that human influence has been the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th Century. This growing ability to attribute quantifiable amounts of warming to human actions should make decision-makers sit up, take notice and take action. With that quantification comes increased risk, cost and accountability for those whose decisions most shape our climate trajectory. As our understanding of climate impacts increases, so too does our awareness that the continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels comes at a devastating cost to human lives, human rights and the environment. Those who have the power to reduce carbon emissions and avert climate disaster but fail to use it will expose themselves to significant financial, regulatory and legal risk. They will ultimately need to answer to a critical mass of humanity who finds inaction unacceptable.