Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international body of scientists dedicated to the study of climate change, state that the evidence for man-made climate change is unequivocal. Man-made emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides and tropospheric ozone, are impacting the earth's radiative balance, causing global temperatures to increase. A warming trend has been observed in long term temperature records and predictions made using state of the art climate models indicate this trend will continue.

The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, commissioned by the UK government, indicates that the cost of acting to prevent climate change today will cost much less than it will to deal with the projected impacts in the future.

Solutions: Mitigation and Adaptation
Mitigation
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines mitigation as: “An anthropogenic intervention to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases.” As a large proportion of greenhouse gases are emitted as a result of energy use, renewable energy, which does not emit greenhouse gases, represents one of the most important mitigation strategies. It is one of the most promising mitigation options, and has experienced rapid growth and development in recent years.

Adaptation
The IPCC defines adaptation as the, “adjustment in natural or human systems to a new or changing environment. Adaptation to climate change refers to adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities. Various types of adaptation can be distinguished, including anticipatory and reactive adaptation, private and public adaptation, and autonomous and planned adaptation.” An example of climate change adaptation which 4NRg is involved in is our Integrated Coastal Protection project. Gradual sea level rise, coupled with increased storm frequency and severity puts our coastlines at increased risk to coastal flooding and erosion. 4NRg have several devices which combine renewable energy with coastal protection; this makes coastal protection projects more economically viable as the sale of the electricity produced can be offset against the initial cost of the project.