Growing awareness that the impacts of climate change on human populations are imminent, as well as potentially devastating, has prodded some policymakers and most of the scientific community to call for more effective action.
Deepening alarm at the scale of the development-environment quandary in the Anthropocene Era (Steffen et al, 2011) is typified in recent compelling statements by the world’s most influential multilateral leader, Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations Secretary General. In words that would have been viewed as anathema by the development community not long ago, Ban Ki-Moon told a recent gathering of the world’s business and policymaking leaders in no uncertain terms that – “In the 21st century, supplies are running short and the global thermostat is running high. Climate change is showing us that the old model is more than obsolete. It has rendered it extremely dangerous. Over time, that model is a recipe for national disaster. It is a global suicide pact” (Ban Ki-Moon, 2011).
