A study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) now reports that the impacts and costs of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) of global warming will be far greater than expected, if we continue on our current path.
Our demand for energy is creating dangerous levels of greenhouse gas emissions through the burning of non-renewable fossil fuels, including carbon dioxide (CO2).
Rising levels of CO2 in our atmosphere is causing an increase in the Earth’s temperature through the trapping of the sun’s heat - known as global warming - a trend that has seen record-breaking storms, forest fires, droughts, coral bleaching, heat waves, and floods around the world with just 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit in the past decade.
Sustainable Merton believes that the UN is right to highlight the dire problems we face due to climate change and almost certainly right about their prediction of 12 years left for us to really take this threat seriously.
This is not a shock for all of those who have followed this for the last 40 years but because the build up to this point has been very gradual, most politicians, businesses and citizens have failed to take the steps needed to reverse the process.
So, we are now at the incredibly challenging point described by the UN and our response can no longer be so tame.
Climate change is an unfamiliar challenge which will require all of us to display imagination and courage and our politicians real leadership.
We need to think global, act local. We must work together to influence local policy on air quality and take forward projects to improve sustainability in our area. Overall our government has to take action and also influence policy in other countries
Diana Sterck
Interim CEO