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A review of the earth's timeline highlights the exponential rate of climate change during the last century:
- Atmospheric CO2 levels have risen from 280 parts per million (ppm) in pre-industrial times to 370 ppm
- Arctic sea ice has reduced by about 40% in recent decades
- Global average temperatures have increased from 13.7oC to 14.3oC in the last 100 years
- Ice sheets in Antarctica and, to a lesser extent, Greenland are retreating
- Montane Glaciers are retreating
- Frequency of extreme weather (floods, droughts, storms) is increasing
- The 1990s was the hottest decade in the last 1,000 years
- Populations,
migration patterns, and seasonal and reproductive behaviour of animals
and plants, on land and in the sea, are changing.
The Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change aims to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases:
- the
current commitment period (2008-12) requires a global reduction of
5.2%, an EU reduction of 8% and a UK reduction of 12.5% on 1990 levels
Even
if these and subsequent targets are met, current trends are likely to
continue for at least 50 years due to the activity times of greenhouse
gases once in the atmosphere.
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