Climate disaster a significant possibility says Nobel price winner Steven Chu

Since the IPCC report came out in 2007, new data point to even more alarming scenarios. We underestimate the risk and ignore the fact that the planet is threatened with "sudden, unpredictable, and irreversible disaster," says Steve Chu, one of the world's leading climate and energy experts.

Catastrophic damage to ecosystems because of global warming is "a significant possibility." We can expect "disasters in orders of magnitude different from anything we've experienced thus far," like abrupt, large-scale shifts in the climate system, collapse of ocean circulation and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and heat waves killing thousands of people. It is most likely that cities such as Tokyo, Mumbai, Buenos Aires, New York, and London must be protected behind sea walls because of rising sea levels and extreme weather.

These are some of the conclusions in an interview published today with Nobel Laureate Dr. Steve Chu, Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California. In the interview, the physicist and Copenhagen Climate Councillor evaluates the current scientific knowledge on climate change and the developments since the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report was published in 2007.

His conclusion is that the IPCC report understates the problem, and the rise in global average temperature is very unlikely to be less than 1.5°C and will most likely fall in the range of 2-4.5°C. He adds that due to lack of preventive measures so far, current levels of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere "puts us on track for temperature increases of more than 6.1°C by the end of the century," an increase of catastrophic proportions.

Chu strongly urges governments to take action, and points out that technologies to curb emissions exist or are emerging.

Chu compares the situation to a homeowner who discovers that his house has faulty wiring that may cause electrical fires and needs and expensive repair. "What we are doing is the equivalent of dealing with the problem by [..] investing in a set of fire extinguishers that can help us fight the fire – but won't prevent it from happing in the first place. We face the same choice now: to go on living as we are [...] or to address the risks in the house we live in, and make the repairs we can, to make the house safe for ourselves and our descendents," says Chu.

The full interview is published by Copenhagen Climate Council and CITRIS-BRIE of UC Berkeley.