Following the release of the IPCC’s first installment of its fifth assessment report (AR5) on climate change in Stockholm on Friday, environmental groups, experts, and activists from around the world were reacting to the findings contained in the report and commenting on the implications it will or should have as the planet faces the “unprecedented” rate of global warming and the irrefutable consensus by the world’s scientific community.
For most, the report’s findings represent only a more precise and updated affirmation of what has been known to most experts for decades. What they say now is that whatever forces or misinformation have inhibited solving the problem of planetary global warming must now be pushed aside and world leaders must change course to create a new energy paradigm if the worst scenarios offered in the report are to be avoided.
What follows is a sampling of those reactions and perspective from those on the frontline of the climate issue.
“We’ve won the scientific argument for fifteen years—we know beyond any doubt that carbon is warming the atmosphere. But we also know beyond any doubt that fossil fuel money is polluting the politics of climate. That’s why we keep building movements.” –Bill McKibben, 350.org
Climate campaign movement leader :
Canada’s :
“We must accept that most fossil fuels will have to stay in the ground and that chasing to the ends of the earth to suck out the last few remaining drops of oil is an expensive and dangerous waste of time.” –Stephanie Tunmore, Greenpeace
Stephanie Tunmore, a climate campaigner at , offered this response:
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“Needed is a plan for slashing fossil fuel consumption (and hence overall economic throughput) in a way that supports the current mass of humanity, while reducing fertility levels to achieve a population size that can be supported long-term without compromising ecological systems.” —Richard Heinberg, Post-Carbon Institute
The ‘s Richard Heinberg said this in an email to Common Dreams:
Achim Steiner, head of the , spoke to reporters during the IPCC’s press conference in Stockholm:
“The future reads like a medical diagnosis for an overweight smoker with a heart condition: unless the patient makes major lifestyle changes, the illness will grow far worse, with severe debilitation or death distinct possibilities. We can and we must make the huge effort to turn things around.” –Dr. Jeff Masters
Noted meterologist and founder of the Weather Underground blog, wrote read the report’s findings and offered this response:
tackles the inevitable response to the IPCC report by the fossil fuel industry-funded cabal of climate science denialists:
Reacting to the report released today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Tim Gore, Oxfam’s Grow Campaign Head of Policy said;
“The latest climate science affirms what small scale farmers around the world are telling us, seasons are changing, weather is increasingly extreme and unpredictable making it tougher to feed their families.
“This report also tells us it is possible to avoid the very worst impacts of climate change and the goal of ensuring everyone has enough to eat is still attainable. Governments should learn from the mistakes of the global financial crisis where warning signs were ignored and listen to the experts before it is too late.
“They must take actions immediately to slash emissions as well as investing in building the resilience of people in poverty so we can move from the current path facing disaster to higher safer ground.”
– See more at: http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/pressroom/reactions/oxfam-reaction-2013-int…
Tim Gore, head of policy for Grow Campaign, released this statement:
The Guardian newspaper’s reports on what consequences the IPCC report spells out for developing countries:
“The IPCC report’s findings make clear that with each passing year of continued high emissions, the prospect of keeping temperatures from rising less than 2°C through emissions reductions alone will become ever more vanishingly small.” –Peter Frumhoff, Union of Concerned Scientists
Peter Frumhoff, the ’s science and policy director and a former IPCC lead author, writes of the latest report:
“The good news is that there are solutions available. The science gives us more than enough information to tackle the problem with urgency.” –PJ Partington, Pembina Institute
P.J. Partington, climate policy analyst at the :
Statement by Trip Van Noppen, president of
Andrew Freedman, correspondent and expert for , writes in part:
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