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Commentary

Nature 458, 1102-1103 (30 April 2009) | doi:10.1038/4581102a; Published online 29 April 2009

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Overshoot, adapt and recover

Martin Parry1, Jason Lowe1 & Clair Hanson1

  1. Martin Parry was co-chair of the IPCC's 2007 Working Group II assessment and is now at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AR, UK.
    Email: martin@mlparry.com
  2. Jason Lowe is head of mitigation advice at the Met Office, Exeter EX1 3PB, UK.
  3. Clair Hanson was deputy director of the 2007 IPCC Working Group II technical support unit and is at the University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK.

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We will probably overshoot our current climate targets, so policies of adaptation and recovery need much more attention, say Martin Parry, Jason Lowe and Clair Hanson.

If policy-makers are to reach international agreement on greenhouse-gas emissions at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Copenhagen in December, they need to be optimistic that their decisions could have swift and overwhelmingly positive effects on climate change. The reality is less certain, but no less urgent.

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