Climate Change and Renewable Energy

Climate Change

The global climate is changing and 2007 saw the publication of more studies that forecast the devastating consequences of this change. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported in November 2007 that further climate change, brought about by greenhouse gas emissions, is “unequivocal” and may bring “abrupt and irreversible impacts”. Within the UK these impacts are likely to include: Extremes in weather, bringing increased frequency of damaging incidents such as severe storms and drought. Increasing temperatures due to the greenhouse effect from increasing concentrations of greenhouse gasses such as CO2 and Methane Rising sea level as a result of melting ice caps and thermal expansion of the oceans, causing flooding of many coastal areas

Friends of the Earth have described global warming as ‘the single biggest environmental threat’ facing our planet and Greenpeace state the following on their website:

The world is warming up. Already 150,000 people are dying every year because of climate change and, within 50 years, one-third of all land-based species could face extinction. If we carry on the way we are now, by 2100 the planet will likely be hotter than it's been at any point in the past two million years. But catastrophic climate change isn't inevitable. We know that climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels. The technologies that could dramatically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels already exist and have been proven to work. If we start cutting our emissions now then there is still a chance to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.