Compounding social and economic impacts: The limits to adaptation

Abstract

The climate within which human civilization and Australian society will advance, stagnate or decline through the lives of our children and grandchildren and beyond will be determined by how we think about and respond to the risks of climate change over the next decade. A global average temperature rise of 4°C from pre-industrial levels (14°C GW or 3.5°C above 1990 levels) is well outside the relatively stable temperatures of the last 12,000 years, which have provided the environmental context for the development of human civilization. This Four Degree World would be unknown territory for modern humans and probably for our species at any time in the past. Even the best mitigation efforts will..