The United Nations Foundation and Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, today released "Confronting Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable and Managing the Unavoidable," the final report of the Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. The report, prepared for the upcoming meeting of the UN's Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), outlines a roadmap for preventing unmanageable climate changes and adapting to unavoidable ones.

Two years in the making, "Confronting Climate Change" was written by an international panel of scientists co-chaired by Sigma Xi past-president Peter H. Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, and Rosina Bierbaum, dean of the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and the Environment. John P. Holdren, director of Woods Hole Research Center, was among the co-authors. The expert team was invited by the UN's Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Secretariat to the CSD, to make recommendations on climate change mitigation and adaptation. Visit www.confrontingclimatechange.org to download the full report.

"This report defines the seriousness and urgency that must characterize global efforts to respond to the unfolding and far-reaching challenge of climate change," said Timothy E. Wirth, president of the UN Foundation. "It makes clear that we must start immediately to stabilize and reverse the trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions."

"Our recommendations are designed to help the international community get on a path to stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and managing the impacts of climate change," said Raven, a National Medal of Science recipient. "These steps will contribute to achievement of the UN's Millennium Development Goals; failing to do so will make those goals much harder, if not impossible, to reach."

"The world is experiencing climate disruption now and future increases in droughts, floods and sea-level rise will cause enormous human suffering and economic losses," said Bierbaum, former acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. "We can manage water better, bolster disaster preparedness, increase surveillance for emerging diseases . . . and enhance local capacity to cope with a suite of expected changes."

"It is still possible to avoid an unmanageable degree of climate change, but the time for action is now," said Holdren, chairman of the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The report's key findings include:

--Exceeding global average temperature increases of 2-2.5 degrees C above the 1750 pre-industrial level would entail "sharply increasing the risk of intolerable impacts." To avoid that will require stabilizing atmospheric concentrations at no more than 450-500 ppm of CO2 (compared to about 380 ppm CO2 today). That in turn requires that global CO2 emissions peak no later than 2015 to 2020 at not much above their current level and decline by 2100 to about a third of that value.

The technology exists to reduce emissions globally and provide other economic, environmental and social benefits. Policy-makers must immediately act by:

--Improving transportation through vehicle efficiency standards, fuel taxes and registration fees/rebates that favor efficient and alternative-fuel vehicles.

--Improving the design and efficiency of commercial and residential buildings.

--Expanding the use of biofuels through energy portfolio standards and incentives.

--Designing and deploying coal power-plants that can be affordably retrofitted to capture and sequester CO2.

Societies must do more to adapt to climate change by:

--Improving preparedness/response strategies and management of natural resources.

--Addressing the adaptation needs of the poorest nations, which will bear the brunt of climate change impacts.

--Planning and building climate resilient cities.

--Strengthening international, national and regional institutions to cope with weather-related disasters and climate change refugees.

The international community, through the UN and related multilateral institutions, can play a crucial role in mitigation and adaptation by:

--Helping poorer nations to finance and deploy energy-efficient and new energy technologies

--Educating all about the opportunities to adopt mitigation and adaptation measures.

The coordinating lead authors of the report, in addition to Raven, Bierbaum and Holdren, included MICHAEL MACCRACKEN, chief scientist for climate change programs, Climate Institute, Washington, D.C.; and RICHARD H. MOSS, senior director, Climate and Energy, UN Foundation and University of Maryland.

Other lead authors were: ULISSES CONFALONIERI, professor, National School of Public Health and Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; JACQUES DUBOIS, member of the executive board, Swiss Re, United States; ALEXANDER GINZBURG, deputy director, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences; PETER H. GLEICK, president, Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security, United States; ZARA KHATIB, technology marketing manager, Shell International, United Arab Emirates; JANICE LOUGH, principal research scientist, Australian Institute of Marine Science; AJAY MATHUR, president, Senergy Global Private Limited, India; Nobel laureate MARIO MOLINA, professor, University of California, San Diego; KETO MSHIGENI, vice chancellor, Hubert Kairuki Memorial University, Tanzania; NEBOJSA NAKICENOVIC, professor, Vienna University of Technology, and program leader, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria; TAIKAN OKI, professor, Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo; HANS JOACHIM SHELLNHUBER, director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany; and DIANA URGE-VORSATZ, professor, Central European University, Hungary.

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ABOUT SIGMA XI Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society is an international honor society for research scientists and engineers, with more than 500 chapters and 60,000 members in North America and around the world. The society sponsors a number of programs that promote science and engineering and also publishes American Scientist magazine. Sigma Xi's administrative offices are in Research Triangle Park, N.C. www.sigmaxi.org

ABOUT THE UN FOUNDATION The UN Foundation was created in 1998 with entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turner's historic $1 billion gift to support UN causes and activities. The UN Foundation builds and implements public-private partnerships to address the world's most pressing problems and also works to broaden support for the UN through advocacy and public outreach. The UN Foundation is a public charity. www.unfoundation.org

Media Contacts:
Charles Blackburn, Sigma Xi, Communications Manager, 800-243-6534 ext 212, cblackburn@sigmaxi.org Katherine Miller, United Nations Foundation, Communications Director, 202-778-1622, kmiller@unfoundation.org