A sensible strategy to minimize the damages from anthropogenic climate change has two objectives: mitigate the pace and ultimate magnitude of the changes that occur and adapt to the changes that cannot be avoided. To underline this two-pronged approach, the recent report Confronting Climate Change, prepared for the United Nations (UN) by an international panel we co-chaired, was subtitled Avoiding the Unmanageable and Managing the Unavoidable (www.unfoundation.org/SEG/). On 27 February 2007, we presented UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with this urgent call for new levels of commitment and coordination by the UN and its member states to avoid the worst climate-change dangers while there is still time.
The Scientific Expert Group (SEG) on Climate Change and Sustainable Development was organized by the scientific research society Sigma Xi and the UN Foundation at the request of the UN Department on Economic and Social Affairs. Our 18 expert members come from 11 countries and a wide range of disciplines and institutions. Unlike the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which may not make recommendations for action, the SEG was invited to tell the UN what it should do to address the climate-change challenge, and after over 2 years of work, it did.
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