Climate Change is Now: Scientists Urge Policy Makers Not to Wait

There's overwhelming evidence for climate change. It's not happening at some point in the future; instead, it's happening now. Yet policy decisions leading to substantial emissions reduction have been slow. Now, new research reveals the intersection between personal and global impacts, and what motivates individuals to respond to a shifting climate.

Nearly every year, extreme weather events such as heat waves and hurricanes spur discussion about climate change. This can create a window of opportunity for those who wish to enact policy to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Yet this particular window of opportunity can be delayed for decades if the weather isn't "compliant."

"When support for doing something about climate change is based on personal observations of local weather, policymaking may end up being dictated by the roulette wheel of natural climate variability," said Katharine Ricke, one of the researchers, in a news release.

In order to see how drastically climate might impact countries, the researchers made models in order to create forecast predictions. They found that within 50 years nearly every country in the world will experience the kind of extreme weather that can be a policy trigger. At the same time, though, local natural variability means that the majority of people in each nation, especially in large countries like China, could personally experience these extremes either tomorrow or many years from now.

"Local weather is anecdotal information, but climate change is sound science," said Ken Caldeira, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Good politics can be based on a good anecdote, but good policy needs to be based on sound science."

The findings reveal that it's important to enact policies now rather than waiting for a "trigger." More specifically, it shows that science should guide policy rather than anecdotal evidence, especially when policies could be delayed by decades because of it.

The findings are published in the journal Nature Climate Change.