Australian Renewable Energy Revolution Critical By 2020

The author of a new report from the Climate Commission says the world is running out of time to prevent serious climate events caused by global warming and warns Australia should embrace a renewable energy revolution by 2020 to offset irreversible damage from climate change.

The author of a new report from the Climate Commission, “The Critical Decade: Climate science, risks and responses,” says the world is running out of time to prevent serious climate events caused by global warming and warns Australia should embrace a renewable energy revolution by 2020 to offset irreversible damage from climate change.
  
The Critical Decade report was written by Climate Commissioner Will Steffen, also head of the ANU’s Climate Institute, and aims to provide a coherent picture of the science of climate change as it currently stands and how Australia can mitigate the risks associated with it. 
  
Speaking to the ABC on the launch of the report, Steffen said investment in clean energy technologies and energy efficient infrastructure projects was absolutely critical over the next half-century if Australia hopes to stabilise its carbon emissions. 
  
The report warns that it will not be enough to simply lower carbon emissions; this just slows the growth rate of greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. To avoid a global temperature increase of 2 degrees – a scenario which would result in sea levels rising by 1 metre by 2100, coral reef extinctions, and the end of our polar ice caps – urgent changes must be made in the next decade towards transitioning to a zero-emissions economy, with clean energy sources such as solar, wind and hydro power at the forefront of that change.
  
"There is no room for any further delay in embarking on the transition to a low- or no-carbon economy," the report states. 
  
The Critical Decade reinforces the science behind the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2007 judgement that global warming is caused by burning fossil-fuels for energy, and raises the question of possible links between recent severe floods and bushfires around Australia with human-induced climate change.
  
Download The Critical Decade: full report (PDF 8 MB).
  

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