Met Office releases warning on climate change after environmental analysis

The Met Office has warned that the world has just ten years in which to control pollution levels if it is to avoid large-scale climate change.

Funded by the European Commission, the project - called Ensembles - collaborated with scientists from around the world to develop a number of scenarios relating to climate change.

In the first study of its kind, scientists ran a range of global climate models in order to produce likely climate predictions.

According to the Daily Telegraph, their findings show that emissions must become negative by 2050 if the world is to limit any temperature increase to a "safe" level of two degrees C.

Director of the project Paul van der Linden told the newspaper that it would be a big challenge to limit temperature rises.

He said: "To limit global mean temperature [increases] to below two degrees C, implied emissions of CO2 to the atmosphere at the end of the century [need to] fall close to zero in most cases."

This projection would see emissions peak between 2010 and 2020 before rapidly falling, according to the publication.

Key impacts across industries including insurance, forestry and agriculture were also detailed by the scientists, along with a probable timescale for the effects.

Posted by Joseph Hutton