UK research bodies call for actions against climate change

Three of the leading scientific research bodies in the UK urge the need for quick actions to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The Royal Society, the National Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Met Office warn that people will experience a perilous, long term and likely irreversible climate change if the issue is continued to be taken for granted.

Scientific data shows that global carbon emissions are continuously rising. As result, the decade 2000-2009 is warmer than any in the past 150 years and Arctic’s ice cover declined sharply over the past two years.

Professor Alan Thorpe, Chief Executive of NERC; Professor Julia Slingo, Chief Scientist of the Met Office; and Lord Rees, President of the Royal Society; also claimed that there were a number of past disaster events that could be linked to climate change. They sited the 2003 heatwave across Europe, the 2007 floods in the UK, the rising sea levels in the Maldives and the constant drought in Australia as impacts of climate change.

Ahead of the UN climate conference at Copenhagen in December, they said that previous climate-related events strongly call for a new protocol to cut global carbon dioxide emissions which cause rising temperature levels. The research organizations cautioned that people could expect more disastrous events in the coming years if no action is to be done to curb emissions.

Across the world, damages caused by climate change include loss of rainforests and wildlife, ocean acidification, rising sea levels, floods, desertification, and degradation of ecosystems.