The World in 2030

The World in 2030 137
Given that we face a serious and very dangerous global
crisis in the early part of the 21 st century, it is clear that
something has to be done. ‘Business as usual’ simply isn’t
an option.
As mentioned earlier, climate change is already so
advanced that it is impossible to head off its early symptoms.
A February 2007 report by Lehman Brothers called ‘The
Business of Climate Change’ provides more details:
Even if global emissions completely ceased today,
Earth’s mean temperature would continue to rise,
by around 1ºC, as a result of past emissions and
oceanic thermal inertia – the so-called ‘climate
change commitment’.
Given that emissions will not cease today, Earth’s
mean temperature stands to rise by more than 1ºC
over the coming century. Projections of temperature
increase depend on postulated future carbon emissions.
If the growth of emissions remains at around
the ‘business as usual’ rate, the concentration of CO 2
in the atmosphere will reach around 500ppm by
2050. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change’s Third Assessment Report (IPCC
TAR), and recent research by the Hadley Centre,
such a continued increase in greenhouse gas emissions
through the rest of the 21st century would lead
to global warming of between 2ºC and 5.8ºC. 274
The ‘California Progress Report’, also published in early
2007, came to a similar conclusion: