Last year, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) set out an overwhelming body of scientific evidence which put the reality of human-induced climate change beyond any doubt. During 2007 the IPCC was also awarded the Nobel Peace prize in clear recognition that climate change poses a major challenge to the security of mankind in the 21st century.

Involving over 3,800 scientists from over 150 countries and six years of work, the IPCC Fourth

Assessment Report, published in instalments between January and November 2007, reviewed and analysed scientific studies published up to the end of 2006, and in a few cases, to early 2007. Since the publication of this key report, scientific research on climate change and its impacts has continued and new studies are revealing that global warming is accelerating, at times far beyond forecasts outlined in earlier studies included the Fourth Assessment Report.

New numerical modelling studies also provide more detailed indications of the impacts to come if warming continues.

Need important aspects of climate change seem to have been underestimated and the impacts are being felt sooner. For example, early signs of change suggest that the less than 1°C of global warming that the world has experienced to date may have already triggered the first tipping point of the Earth’s climate system – the disappearance of summer Arctic sea ice.

This process could open the gates to rapid and abrupt climate change, rather than the gradual changes that have been forecast so far.

The implication of this recent evidence is that our mitigation and adaptation responses to climate change need to be even more rapid and ambitious.

Explore the Report in PDF format