Climate meltdown: Global Warming heading towards 6 degrees C warns World Bank

Last night I sat down and skimmed through the 106pp report prepared by the prestiguous Postdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) for the World Bank. It is a shocking read, that we are presently on the business as usual emissions path of 4 degrees C of global warming by about the 2060s and 6 degrees C of warming by the turn of the century, just 88 years hence.

The United Nations Environment Program warns that Greenhouse Gas Emissions Gap Widening as Nations Head to Crucial Climate Talks in Doha. The International Energy Agency warned in their 2011 World Energy Outlook report that we are on a 4-6 degree Celsius trajectory and that 80 percent of carbon emissions infrastructure has already been built and is in operation. We cannot afford to add any new carbon intensive infrastructure that will continue to pollute for 30-50 years, yet the World Resources Institute reveals nearly 1,200 Proposed Coal-Fired Power Plants, the majority in India and China.

But grassroots action is having an impact: thousands rallied against coal across India, and a very first Arab Day of Climate Action (Photos) organised by the Arab Youth Climate Movement occurred on November 10. In the US, the Sierra Club reports victories in stopping the coal rush.

A recent Price WaterhouseCoopers report warned that Business as usual Carbon emissions heading towards 6°C (10.8°F) of global warming this century. So there is widespread agreement from science and scientists, energy experts and experts in global economics and accounting that we are facing a climate meltdown.

Related: 4 Degrees or More? Climate Change: The Critical Decade - a speech by Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of PIK. The article includes a CSIRO media release on +4ºC scenarios for Australia's future climate. | Another view from Systemic Disorder: World Bank’s call for slowing global warming ignores own role

Climate Change: Going Beyond Dangerous - a frank presentation by Professor Kevin Anderson

Listen to this 55 minute webinar (voice presentation with slideshow) by Professor Kevin Anderson, on Climate Change: Going Beyond Dangerous. Professor Anderson is Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and holds a chair in Energy and Climate Change at Manchester University, and is an advisor to the British Government on climate change (see Wikipedia).

Kevin Anderson explains in simple language what we are facing in our climate future - a four degree world perhaps as soon as 2060 and a 6 to 8 degree world by the end of the century. He is brutally honest and straight forward in his assessments of where we are at with mitigation and the options open for humanity. Climate negotiations have dithered since 1992, and have left no easy options for us. The longer we delay, the more difficult it will be to respond to climate change.
It is only through knowing the dire extent of the situation that we can take the actions necessary to possibly avoid the worst climate impacts.

Professor Kevin Anderson - Climate Change: Going Beyond Dangerous

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4 Degrees or More? Climate Change: The Critical Decade - a speech by Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber

This was the 1st keynote address to the Four degrees or more? conference Australia in a hot world which is currently meeting in Melbourne. After a day and a half of listening to climate scientists detailing the present climate impacts and future projections, understandably I, and many others, felt a little depressed.

But most of these scientists and other delegates are possessed of a human optimism that the challenge can be overcome. That human society has the technical and engineering capability to avoiding a 4 degree or higher world, to limit global warming to 2 degrees celsius as agreed to in Copenhagen in 2009 and affirmed in Cancun in 2010.