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Climate Change

The Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir David King, views climate change as one of the greatest challenges facing us in the early 21st century. In January 2004, his scientific paper "Climate Change Science: Adapt, Mitigate, or Ignore?" was published in Science Magazine. The paper highlights the need radically to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, most notably carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use, if we are to mitigate the risk of the most serious impacts that can be expected as a result of future warming, such as more extreme weather events and increased flooding and coastline vulnerability. Sir David continues to speak regularly on this theme to a wide range of UK and international audiences. 

There is a great deal of information available on-line about climate change. One good source, including for signposting more widely and for information on the Government's approach to tackling the problem, is the Defra website which can be found under external links on the right-hand side of the screen.

Information about climate change science can also be found on the Hadley Centre web site. Hadley is a world-renowned centre of excellence for climate change research, based within the UK Meteorological Office.   

At the request of the Chancellor, Sir Nicholas Stern has led a major review of the economics of climate change to understand more comprehensively the nature of the challenge set in an economic as well as scientific context, and how it can be met in the UK and globally. The review reported its findings in October 2006 and the full report is available on HM Treasury's website.