ROYAL SOCIETY. Royal Society: 320ppm CO2 to ensure planetary health

The UK Royal Society, the national academy of science of the UK and the Commonwealth, was founded in 1660 and is at the cutting edge of scientific progress. The Royal Society is one of the world’s most prestigious scientific bodies and its members include the most outstanding British and Commonwealth scientists (see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society ).

See the Royal Society, “Climate change controversies: a simple guide”: “The Royal Society has produced this overview of the current state of scientific understanding of climate change to help non-experts better understand some of the debates in this complex area of science. This is not intended to provide exhaustive answers to every contentious argument that has been put forward by those who seek to distort and undermine the science of climate change and deny the seriousness of the potential consequences of global warming. Instead, the Society - as the UK's national academy of science - responds here to eight key arguments that are currently in circulation by setting out, in simple terms, where the weight of scientific evidence lies” (see: http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?id=6229 ).

Statement by the technical working group on coral, The Royal Society on 6th July 2009: "The Earth’s atmospheric CO₂ level must be returned to <350ppm to reverse this escalating ecological crisis and to 320ppm to ensure permanent planetary health. Actions to achieve this must be taken urgently. The commonly mooted best case target of 450ppm and a time frame reaching to 2050 will plunge the Earth into an environmental state that has not occurred in millions of years and from which there will be no recovery for coral reefs and for many other natural systems on which humanity depends. Working group signatories Professor John Veron (Coral Reef Research), Dr Mary Stafford-Smith (Coral Reef Research), Prof. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg (University of Queensland) [and 20 other eminent scientists]". [1].

[1]. Output of the technical working group meeting, The Royal Society, London, 6th July, 2009, “The Coral Reef Crisis: scientific justification for critical CO₂ threshold levels of <350ppm”: http://www.carbonequity.info/PDFs/The-Coral-Reef-Crisis.pdf .