The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just issued its 5th  Assessment Report. This represents the international scientific consensus on the state of climate change, its human causes, and what we need to do to keep global warming within the hopefully safe limit of 2℃ above the pre-industrial level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – before we starting running our economies on fossil fuels.

The short answer is that we have to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. That means leaving fossil fuels in the ground, reducing energy use and increasing the use of renewables – including networked renewables over large regions, such as the whole of Europe.

We are at the Carbon Crossroads and need to take the road to 2℃

(Click on infographic to enlarge it)

95% certainty about IPCC findings

For anyone with any lingering doubts about the scientific consensus behind the IPCC 5th Assessment Report, here’s another infographic, this one from Climate Nexus. This shows the growing body of evidence and the growing level of certainty about human-caused the climate change.

For more info, here’s the approved summary of Working Group I’s Contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis.