The effects of global warming are now everywhere and close enough to home for everyone to see in their everyday lives. We are witnessing more extreme weather, retreating glaciers and melting ice sheets, rising sea levels and flooding. More important is the climate change that is now impacting the lives of millions of people around the world, from Spain to Somalia, as major changes occur to water supply, food production and entire ecosystems.

Dramatic rise in carbon levels

Globally 19 of the warmest 20 years have occurred since 1980. Global warming is due to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.  When we burn coal, oil and gas to make energy, run our transport or heat our homes, we release the stored solar energy and trapped carbon from fossil fuels laid down over millions of years.  We are in the last days of this ancient sunlight. The peak oil period.  Yet our continued massive consumption means CO2 is building up in the atmosphere, trapping in heat - the greenhouse effect.  Atmospheric carbon levels are rising dramatically.  Levels stood at 316 parts per million in 1959.  By 2004 levels had risen to 377 ppm.  An increase of almost 20%.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects that, if unchecked, Carbon Dioxide levels in the atmosphere will have risen by as much as 970 ppm by 2100. Global temperatures would warm by nearly 6°C compared with 1990 levels.

Latest figures show that C02 is accumulating in the atmosphere much faster than expected. From 1970 to 2000 C02 concentrations rose by an average of 1.5 ppm each year. But since 2001, the annual average has been 2.2 ppm.

Facing the future

Everywhere, people are seeing for themselves changes in weather and seasons, affecting everything from farming to insurance premiums. We can meet change with change. We can achieve the kind of cutbacks in CO2 emissions needed to stabilise carbon levels.  It can start now with a first step.  We can all begin to take responsibility for our carbon footprints and our consumption - the part our lifestyles and organisations play in changing carbon levels in the atmosphere.