Counting the costs of comfort

The recent Synthesis Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fifth Report on Climate Change states clearly that the warming of the climate system is unequivocal and, since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over periods from decades to millennia (IPCC, 2014). It highlights that the atmosphere and oceans have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, and the sea level has risen. It gives clear evidence of the often devastating impacts caused by anthropogenic climate change on the natural and human systems on all continents and across the oceans.