ict & environment reading 1. climate system how does the climate system work?

ICT & Environment

Reading 1

Climate System

• How does the climate system work?

Development and Climate Change

Success hinges on changing behaviour and shifting public opinion. Individuals, as citizens and consumers, will determine the planet’s future. Although an increasing number of people know about climate change and believe action is needed, too few make it a priority, and too many fail to act when they have the opportunity. So the greatest challenge lies with changing behaviours and institutions, particularly in high-income countries. Public policy changes—local, regional, national, and international—are necessary to make private and civic action easier and more attractive. (page 21)

Links between Climate Change and Technological Innovation

• The effects of climate change are already visible in higher average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising sea levels. Cold days, cold nights, and frosts have become less frequent while heat waves are more common. (page 26)

Climate change only makes the challenge more complicated. First, the impacts of a changing climate are already being felt, with more droughts, more floods, more strong storms, and more heat waves—taxing individuals, firms, and governments, drawing resources away from development. (page 23)

Innovation is also needed in transport, building, water management, urban design, and many other sectors that affect climate change and are in turn affected by climate change—so innovation is a critical issue for adaptation as well.

Page 26

Climate-smart policies (page 32)

• Changing behaviours and organizational goals and standards is difficult and usually slow, but it has been done before

Carbon Cycle page 71

Build resilient communities

• Being able to adapt to climates and climate change

Climate Smart

• Biofuel policies • Low carbon technologies

http://downloads.theccc.org.uk.s3.amazonaws.com/Low%20carbon%20Innovation/Low_carbon_innovation_supporting-analysis.pdf

Page 322 - Harnessing individuals’ behavioural change

Climate change requires public interventions (page 330)

• Government?• Private Sector?

More IPCC Reports

• http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml

Samples of Past Reports