World's leading scientists warn climate change is as great a threat as nuclear warfare

The threat of climate change is as severe as nuclear warfare, according to an emergency summit of the world's Nobel Laureates.

Louise Gray, The Telegraph 29 May 09;

The group of Nobel winners, together with Prince Charles, issued a memorandum which declared the best chance of stopping catastrophic climate change is to keep the predicted temperature rise at or below 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F).

Without action, they envisaged three times that temperature rise, which would mean global warming would cause a huge rise in sea levels, and swamp the cities of London, Paris and Copenhagen.

The communique is likely to influence world leaders at the forthcoming international conference on climate change in Copenhagen at the end of this year.

More than 20 Nobel Laureates, including President Obama's Energy Secretary Steven Chu, gathered at the meeting in London to discuss the threat of global warming.

After three days the St James's Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium concluded that climate change posed a danger of similar proportions to "the threat posed to civilisation by the advent of thermonuclear weapons".

The memorandum read: "The St James's Palace Memorandum calls for a global deal on climate change that matches the scale and urgency of the human, ecological and economic crises facing the world today.

"It urges governments at all levels, as well as the scientific community, to join with business and civil society to seize hold of this historic opportunity to transform our carbon-intensive economies into sustainable and equitable systems. We must recognise the fierce urgency of now.

"We know what needs to be done. We cannot wait until it is too late. We cannot wait until what we value most is lost."

The eminent group unveiled a number of ambitious targets on cutting carbon emissions that go far beyond anything the world has so far managed to achieve during the Kyoto Protocol or any previous international summit on climate change.

They said global greenhouse gases will have to peak by 2015, meaning the current growth in carbon dioxide caused by the rapid development of China and India will have to stop in the next six years.

Developed countries would have to cut reduce greenhouse gas emissions by between 25 to 40 per cent. This means the UK would have to increase its current target of 34 per cent by 2020 and the US would have to commit to any targets for the first time.

The whole world will have to cut emissions by at least 50 per cent by 2050 meaning developing countries will also have to make cuts despite growing demand for energy intensive goods and cars.

The memorandum recommended forcing polluters to pay extra for emitting carbon across large parts of the global economy and massive investment in new technologies such as renewables in order to cut emissions.

There was also a call for emergency funding to stop deforestation, that causes a fifth of carbon emissions every year, by paying poorer countries not to chop down trees.

The paper has been compared to the Einstein-Russell manifesto in 1955 when Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell brought together scientists from around the world to speak out against the threat posed by the H-bomb.

Speaking after the agreement had been signed, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, which organised the summit, said the consequences of not acting were comparable to a nuclear fall out.

"It is comparable in magnitude [to nuclear warfare]. With business as usual we will have another five or six degrees Celsius [9 to 10.8F] – that could not sustain civilisation as we know it, which is quite comparable to a nuclear shoot-out. It would mean 80 metres rise in sea level – London, Paris and Copenhagen would disappear. This could not sustain nine billion people [the predicted population of the world.]"