According to a new report from the UN's expert panel on climate science, there is conclusive scientific evidence that humans are changing theclimate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has argued the urgency to undertake stricter actions to stop the severe and irreversible impacts of climate change. Such actions should involve greater uptake of renewable energy, which should provide 80 per cent of the world's electricity by 2050, up from the 30 per cent it currently represents. Moreover, the IPCC has called for the phase-out of fossil fuels without carbon capture and storage (CCS) by the end of the century. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon at the climate change summit in New York has urged the importance to establish urgent and immediate action. In this context, leaders must take effective policies in order to achieve concrete results. Scientific evidences have highlighted the urgency of the current situation. According to Ed Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, this plan represents the most comprehensive assessment of climate change. This means that we must act on climate change now. As the IPCC report has shown, the period from 1983 to 2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1,400 years. An increase in global temperature of 2°C would determine a serious climate catastrophe, experts say. In this framework, the IPCC has estimated that an annual investment equivalent to 0.06 per cent of the global economy would represent a good strategy in order to avoid the impact of climate change related issue. In this way, we could see a rise of 5°C without concerted efforts to reduce carbon emissions in the near term, the IPCC suggests. We can't afford to burn all the fossil fuels we have without dealing with the waste product which is CO2 and without dumping it in the atmosphere, Professor Myles Allen from Oxford University adds. Renewable energy plays a central role. A recent study of the German Fraunhofer Institute said that the cost of solar energy was falling quicker than previously anticipated. To make an example, in the US, solar is on track to replace other energy sources by 2016, experts indicate. Additionally, Denmark, where the IPCC talks were held, has stressed its commitment to ban coal use by 2025 introducing a wide range of green energy measures. In this context, the UN delegates will meet in Paris in December 2015 to decide how to tackle climate change. The gLAWcal Team EPSEI project Saturday, 1 November 2014 (Source: The Independent)