ABSTRACT
In 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that the evidence for ‘warming of the climate system is now unequivocal’ and that its causes were ‘very likely’ (with a probability of more than 90 per cent) due to human action which had increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. If ‘business as usual’ continued further, warming of between 1.7 and 6.4 degrees would be ‘likely’ by the end of the century with signifi cant impacts upon ecosystems and on the health, welfare and indeed survival of millions of humans (IPCC 2007: 27, 30, 39, 45, 48; for a fuller description of the IPCC fi ndings see Chapter 1, this volume).
