Notes from Bruno Giussani's LunchOverIP

Andy Reisinger is a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC - wikipedia page) that won -- collectively -- the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize alongside Al Gore for their work on scientifically assessing the state of the Earth's climate. He's actually a very important member of the group, because he has coordinated the small group writing and editing the summaries of the reports -- the documents that you've read about in the press and that have landed on governmental desks all over the world.
I'm moderating the session and introduce him as a "co-laureate of the Nobel Prize for Peace". Before starting his talk, he stresses that he's expressing only his personal views and is not representing the IPCC in a formal capacity.
He shares five key messages:

• Climate change is unequivocally happening. There is an increasing confidence among scientists that the change over the last 50 years is very likely due to greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activities.
• Changes in climate of 21st century will be unilke everyting that human civilization has experienced previously. "The world has not been that warm, nor has the global climate changed that rapidly, at any time over the past 10'000 years (ie. The span of human civilization)". Some key impacts of climate change if warming keeps going as it is going: Water stress for more than 1 billion people; 20-30% of species at increasing risk of extintion; Reduced crop yield at lower latitudes; Costal flooding in megadeltas of Africa/Asia; Health risks from heath, malnurition and diarrhea; Long-term (centuries) risks of meters of sea level rise

Just arrived at the office this morning and found Andy Reisinger from the IPCC team that wrote the reports on climate change that made all of the noise at Bali in December 2007. It seems that New Zealanders are taking over this issue since both Andy and Nigel Jollands (http://wattwatt.com/wattwatters/members/440/) who is the key person on climate change at the International Energy Agency in Paris are kiwis - something to do with the beautiful landscape? Andy is speaking at the wattwatt event tonight about his own thoughts on what society can do to combat the climate change. Jonathan