Climate Change is Real
The evidence for Earth’s changing climate is clear.
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. Atmospheric concentrations of CO₂are higher now than at any time in the last 650,000 years, with much of the increase in CO₂level coming in the last decade.
Credit: NASA
Surface temperatures in 2010 tied 2005 as the highest on record. The past decade from 2001 to 2010 was the warmest on record. A NOAA ranking of the 15 hottest years globally shows they all occurred in the last 15 years since 1995.
Human activities -- especially burning fossil fuels for energy -- are the primary cause of this warming. In the past three hundred years, human activities have released more than one and a half trillion tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouses gases into the atmosphere. Because the natural processes that remove CO₂ are slow, a large fraction of that CO₂is expected to remain airborne for hundreds of years, continuing to warm the planet.
As a consequence of warming, the Earth’s climate is changing. Arctic sea ice is retreating, ice sheets and glaciers are melting, and the global sea level has risen about 12 - 22 centimeters (4.8 - 8.8 inches) in the last century (IPCC 2007). Oceans are acidifying, threatening marine life.
Rainfall patterns and storm tracks have changed, and polar ice and mountain glaciers are melting at an alarming rate. Sensitive ecosystems and animal species are in decline.
Recent scientific studies suggest that a temperature increase from pre-industrial times of over 2.5 oC (4.6 oF) is inevitable. Some of that warming has already occurred, and the rest is projected based upon CO₂ already released into the atmosphere and clean up of pollutants that have masked warming from CO₂. These studies suggest that if CO₂emissions continue, the Earth’s climate could pass critical tipping points (such as unstoppable melting of much of the Greenland ice sheet) with destructive impacts on human society.
The implications of these analyses is clear: CO₂emissions must stop -- globally -- by mid-century, to avoid the worst impacts of further warming.
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution global average temperatures have increased by about one and a half degrees Fahrenheit.
CATF is working to:
- Advance low-carbon technologies through global business partnerships and policy
- Promote technology innovation that reduces CCS costs
- Develop incentives and mandates to promote CCS
- Support projects that lower the carbon emissions of power plants