25.03.13
Climate change is ‘completely unequivocal’ –Beddington
Outgoing chief scientific advisor Professor Sir John Beddington is leaving his post with a warning to the world about the dangers of ignoring climate change.
The amount of CO2 already in the atmosphere could cause more floods and droughts over the next 25 years, he said.
He told the BBC: “The [current] variation we are seeing in temperature or rainfall is double the rate of the average. That suggests that we are going to have more droughts, we are going to have more floods, we are going to have more sea surges and we are going to have more storms.
“These are the sort of changes that are going to affect us in quite a short timescale.”
His warning comes as more ‘climate sceptics’ suggest that the release of CO2 into the atmosphere is not increasing global temperatures.
Prof Beddington responded: “The evidence that climate change is happening is completely unequivocal.”
Governments have agreed to try to keep the rise in average global temperatures below 2C, although this is widely considered to be unrealistic.
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