***EMBARGOED UNTIL 12th JULY 2001***

Climate Change… The Facts

Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Cambridge, 12th July 2001

Further proof of the reality of climate change was made available to the planet today with the publication of Climate Change 2001. The three volumes, running to some 2,600 pages, are published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Together they form the most comprehensive picture of the state of the climate and the global environment yet published.

Climate Change 2001 is the IPCC’s Third Assessment, and updates the second (1996) report with further research confirming that earlier judgements and projections of global mean temperature increases were vastly underestimated. The most up-to-date research and forecasts contained within this report predict that global mean temperatures could increase by as much as 5.8°C by the year 2100. The IPCC also concludes that human activity is having a discernible effect on the environment, and that global temperatures are increasing at a rate unprecedented in the last thousand years.

As well as detailing the hard scientific evidence which points to man-made changes to the Earth’s climate, Climate Change 2001 considers the ways in which this climate change will affect human and natural ecosystems, and what we can do to try and avert the probable consequences. Each volume contains a summary for policymakers, condensing the key findings of the research into one chapter.

Many hundreds of scientists from all over the world participated in the preparation and review of the final reports. The following pages highlight the most significant messages from each of the three volumes: I - The Scientific Basis; II - Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability; and III - Mitigation.

About the IPCC

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was set up jointly by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organisation in 1988 to provide an authoritative, international consensus of scientific opinion on climate change. The IPCC’s comprehensive Assessment Reports and the more focused Special Reports are the most up-to-date analyses of all aspects of the climate change issue. Containing contributions from several hundred international experts, they form the standard scientific reference for all concerned with climate change and its consequences, in academe, government and industry world-wide.

Climate Change 2001 is the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report and is published in three volumes by Cambridge University Press on 12th July 2001

Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis Binding: Hardback (Paperback) | ISSN: 0 521 80767 0 (hb) 0 521 01495 6 (pb)| Publication: 12th July 2001

  

Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation & Vulnerability Binding: Hardback (Paperback) | ISSN: 0 521 80768 9 (hb) 0 521 01500 6 (pb) | Publication: 12th July 2001

  

Climate Change 2001: Mitigation Binding: Hardback (Paperback) | ISSN: 0 521 80769 7 (hb) 0 521 01502 2 (pb) | Publication: 12th July 2001

  

Further information

For further information on Climate Change 2001 and to secure your review copies please contact Hannah Proctor, Marketing Controller, Cambridge University Press by email to hproctor@cambridge.org or telephone +44 (0)1223 325782  

	What is happening to the climate?
	What will climate change do to the planet?
	What can be done to prevent further climate change?