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• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Climate change matters
• Turning up the heat
• Why is the present rapid warming happening?
• The importance of delayed climate responses
• Observed impacts
• Trends in human vulnerability
• Projections of future climate change
• Facing the challenge
• Conclusion
• 2 Learning from the past
• Proxy data: clues from the past
• The record of the ice ages
• The causes of past climate change
• Rapid climate changes in the past
• The last 10,000 years
• Conclusions from the past record
• 3 Projecting the future
• The need for, and nature of, foresight
• Predictions, scenarios and projections
• The emissions scenarios used by the IPCC
• Projections of socio-economic futures
• Forecasting the weather
• Why climate projections are different
• The state of climate projections
• 4 Uncertainty is inevitable, but risk is certain
• Despite uncertainties, decisions have to be made
• Uncertainty in climate change projections
• From polarisation to probability and risk
• Estimating risk
• Uncertainty and the role of sceptics
• Application of the ‘precautionary principle’
• 5 What climate changes are likely?
• Projected climate changes
• Scenarios in a nutshell
• 6 Impacts: Why be concerned?
• Climate change impacts – reasons for concern
• Thresholds and abrupt changes
• Risks to unique and threatened systems
• Risks from extreme climate events
• Distribution of impacts
• Aggregate impacts
• Waking the ‘sleeping giants’
• Stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations
• Growing reasons for concern
• 7 Adaptation: living with climate change
• Adaptation concepts and strategies
• Costs and benefits of adaptation
• Implementation
• Effects of different rates of climatic change
• Equity issues in adaptation
• Enhancing adaptive capacity
• 8 Mitigation: limiting climate change
• Why mitigation is necessary
• How much mitigation is needed?
• Where we are now
• How difficult is mitigation?
• The looming peak in oil production
• Mitigation options
• Increased energy efficiency
• Fuel substitution
• Nuclear power
• Hydropower
• Solar energy
• Wind power
• Biomass energy
• Tidal, wave and geothermal energy
• The hydrogen economy
• Carbon capture and sequestration
• Land-based carbon sinks
• Changes in infrastructure and behaviour
• Technological innovation: attitude is vital
• The road to effective mitigation
• 9 Climate change in context
• Surface air pollution and climate change
• Stratospheric ozone depletion
• Biodiversity, agriculture and forestry
• Land degradation and desertification
• Freshwater
• Population growth
• Synergies and trade-offs
• Integration, sustainable development and equity
• 10 The politics of greenhouse
• Is the science credible?
• What about the uncertainty?
• How realistic are the scenarios?
• Choosing global and local emissions targets
• How urgently do we need to act?
• How much will reducing emissions cost?
• Meeting targets most efficiently
• International equity: what is fair?
• The importance of equity within countries
• Equity between generations
• The role of governments and NGOs
• What role should business take?
• The role of state and local governments
• So what are the politics of greenhouse?
• 11 International concern and national interests
• A brief history
• The Kyoto Protocol
• National interests and climate change
• African Nations
• Australia and New Zealand
• China
• European Union
• India, Pakistan and Bangladesh
• Latin America
• The Russian Federation
• Small Island States
• United States of America
• The common interest in global solutions
• 12 Accepting the challenge
• Looking beyond the Kyoto Protocol
• Addressing the key issues
• 13 Further information
• Introduction
• Bibliography/reading list
• Websites
• Index