The defining challenge of our age

Climate change is recognized as a major environmental problem facing the globe. Evidence is building that impacts are being felt in the form of melting icecaps in the polar areas and increased variability of temperature, rainfall and storms in virtually all regions.

The scientific consensus underpinning the rising political and public recognition of the problem has been captured in the recent reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The total costs of limiting concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) to manageable levels will be significant. However, when compared with the anticipated economic impacts of climate change if reduction does not occur and the size of the world economy and its expected growth over the coming decades, the costs of action will amount to a small fraction of that growth.

Action to forestall serious The 13th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bali in December 2007 (CoP13) reached
an historic agreement when theBali Action Plan launched a comprehensive process to enable the full, effective and sustained implementation of the Convention through longterm cooperative action, now, up to and beyond 2012, in order to reach an agreed outcome and adopt a decision at its fifteenth session.

The road leading to the 15th Conference of Parties in Copenhagen in December 2009 is a critical one if we are to address climate change and collectively set the world on a development path that does not undermine our future.