Climate Change Working Party

Making financial sense of the future

Quotes worth remembering...

Climate change expert Nicholas Stern has endorsed the CO2 stabilisation target of 350ppm! Below is an extract from an article on the website www.350.org from 9th September 2009.

'Today in Berlin, a reporter from one of the city's papers, Daniel Boese, asked him [Lord Nicholas Stern] about the 350 target--which goes well beyond the numbers he was using in his book even in April. It's a sign of how quickly the tide is shifting, and also of Stern's intellectual integrity, that he said:

"I think it's a very sensible long-term target." He went on to explain: "People have to be aware that is a truly long-term target. We have already passed 350ppm, we are at 390 ppm of Co2 and at 435 ppm of Co2-equivalents right now. It is most important to stop the increase of flows of emissions short term and then start the decline of flows of annual emissions and get them down to levels which will move concentrations of CO2 back down towards 350ppm." '

Link to full article.

Posted by OB on 17 September 2009

For more great quotes, check out GreatQuotes

New on this site (for old postings click here)

• Climate Sensitivity. In its 4th assessment report published in 2007, the IPCC quoted a best estimate for the Earth's climate sensitivity to doubled carbon dioxide of 3 Celcius. In the paper "Where should humanity aim?" published in 2008, James Hansen and other climate scientists estimated that the Earth's climate sensitivity is 6 Celcius. This page contains science relevant to this issue.
• Update on climate change science
• Link to Kerry Emanuel's data series - just updated for 2008, just look at that SST correlation to Potential Destructiveness!  - Note it has continued to track the SST since 2005. 
• A link to US government reports on Climate Change http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap-summary.php
• The Catastrophe Modelling Forum has published its report on Climate Change implications for modelling.  See http://www.iii.org/media/met/cmf/.  
• In December 2009 Copenhagen hosts a conference which will decide on the successor to the Kyoto treaty. In March, 2500 scientists met also in Copenhagen at a conference to deliver the latest findings on how human emissions of greenhouse gases are affecting the environment and how that is likely to evolve over the coming century. This article discusses why some delegates worry the meeting has only created more confusion, leaving policy-makers even less clear about where to set their emissions targets.
• See this latest work from Mercer and the CDP

Info on the Working Party

The climate change working party is a Members Interest Group of the Actuarial Profession. Its fundamental aim is to bring the financial effects of climate change to the attention of the actuarial community so that they may take it into account when framing their advice.

• Members of the Working Party

Note, the views expressed in climatechange.pbwiki.com do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute of Actuaries, the Environmental Research Group or the employers of the working party members. They may not even reflect the views of all members of the working party. There's a risk that someone will maliciously edit the site, we'll remove any offensive or incorrect statements as soon as they are brought to our attention. Some of the pictures are from this website< which is also sited at the UK news site, BBC, we're happy to remove them from this webpage if required.