The Climate Crisis

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (2007) underlined the scientific consensus that climate change is real, man-made and accelerating at a dangerous pace. Within this century, in a business as usual scenario temperature increases of up to 6°C above pre-industrial times will disrupt our environment severely causing massive movements of population, global conflicts and severe dislocation (Stern, 2009, p.8).

Already today, we experience increased incidents of extreme weather events, higher species extinction rates and a rapid melting of the Arctic ice shelf; sudden changes could become dramatic with irreversible effects. Burning of fossil fuels for energy generation is the major factor for global warming, accounting for about 85% of the CO2 emissions.