Fast facts on Climate Change 1.Overwhelming scientific consensus states that human activities have increased greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, and the main cause of climate change - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
2.The world faces “impacts that are abrupt or irreversible”, if human caused warming is not curtailed, warns a recent IPCC report.
3.Greenhouse gas levels have already climbed from 280 ppm in 1880, to 387 ppm of carbon dioxide equivalent - the highest in the past 650,000 years.
4.With the increase in greenhouse gases, average global temperatures have climbed by nearly 0.76 ºC. Even if we were to stop emissions today, we are already heading for 1.6 ºC of warming.
5.Scientists believe that a 2 ºC rise in global temperatures represents a ‘tipping point’ above which runaway (irreversible) climate change could occur. However, an opinion poll reveals that nine out of 10 climate scientists do not believe we can contain temperature within 2ºC.
6.We are already seeing the effects of warming in Arctic ice melt, collapse of massive ice sheets at the poles, sea level rise, ocean acidification, ecosystem shifts, and changing rainfall. Living systems including coral reefs and polar bears are in decline. Even the ten hottest years on record have been in the past twelve years
7.In September 2007, Artic summer ice declined by a record 1.2 million sq. km, nearly one third the land mass of India.
8.According to climate projections by the IPCC, world emissions must peak by 2015 and start reducing following that, to avoid dangerous climate change
9. Governments of the world have been in the process of deciding how to tackle climate change for over two decades now, under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
10. December 2009 marks a crucial meeting of the UNFCCC to come to a conclusive and binding agreement that sets the world on a path towards climate change mitigation.
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