The UN IPCC Summary for Policymakers of the Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability reports the projected effects of climate change:

• Costs and benefits of climate change for industry, settlement, and society will vary widely by location and scale. In the aggregate, however, net effects will tend to be more negative the larger the change in climate.

• Crop productivity is projected to increase slightly at mid to high latitudes for local mean temperature increases of up to 1-3 degrees Celsius depending on the crop, and then decrease beyond that in some regions.

• Studies in temperate areas have shown that climate change is projected to bring some benefits, such as fewer deaths from cold exposure. Overall it is expected that these benefits will be outweighed by the negative health effects of rising temperatures world-wide, especially in developing countries.

• Approximately 20-30 percent of plant and animal species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperature exceed 1.5-2.5 degrees Celsius.

The report expresses that global warming cannot be stopped; it can only be slowed down. The most catastrophic effects can still be avoided through timely and decisive global action and IPCC recommends a combination of adaptation and mitigation measures. However, even the most stringent mitigation efforts cannot avoid further impacts of climate change in the next few decades, which makes adaptation essential. Over the long term unmitigated climate change would likely exceed the capacity of natural, managed and human systems to adapt.

This suggests a mix of strategies including mitigation, adaptation, technological development (to enhance both adaptation and mitigation) and research must be employed.

The full report will be released next week. It includes more than 2,500 scientists appointed by more than 130 countries.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said a new report on global warming confirms that “climate change is a fact” and that fast international action is needed to combat it, a newspaper reported Friday.

Merkel, whose country currently chairs both the Group of Eight and the European Union, renewed her pledge to make climate change an issue when G-8 leaders meet in Germany in June for their annual summit, according to comments the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung released in advance of publication in Saturday’s edition. Source