6.11. Responses to Anthropogenic Climate Change

Section 6.9 examined the possible future scenarios of anthropogenic climate change, dependent on the rate at which mankind continues to alter the composition of the atmosphere and affect the radiative balance of the climate system. Even the IPCC’s most optimistic emissions projections do not preclude the possibility that severe impacts of climate change (discussed in section 6.10) will be experienced during the twenty-first century. Although detection of greenhouse-forced climate change has not been detected with absolute certainty (section 6.8), the time has now come to assess just what is required to avert a potentially unprecedented destabilisation of the climate system’s present equilibrium.