11/18/2013 - This week, environmental ministers will gather for the "high level segment" of the international climate negotiations. In Warsaw, almost 200 states try to outline the pathway for a new climate agreement. Adaptation to climate change is also on the agenda.
On the occasion, Anders Levermann, co-chair of the research domain "Sustainable Solutions" at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research:
"By emitting greenhouse gases, we have already caused global-warming impacts, such as sea-level rise, which will remain with us for several centuries to come. Further emissions will increase anthropogenic climate change and long before we reach the limits of our planet, we will reach the limits of our society's adaptive capacity. At present nobody knows where these limits are exactly, whether at three, four, five or six degrees of warming. But beyond the 2 degrees guardrail of the international climate negotiations, the risks for our modern society with its complex infrastructure increase significantly. While impacts of climate change can already be observed today, weather extremes like the heat waves in North America, Russia, Australia and Europe, floods as recently in Pakistan and tropical storms like currently in Asia will increase with future warming. Globally coordinated adaptation measures need thus to be on the agenda in Warsaw along with the crucial debate on mitigating the uncontrollable. This is nothing else than sensible risk management."
