Climate change poses one of the greatest and most significant threats on both human life and socioeconomic functionality. The United Nations Framework Convention on ClimateChange in Copenhagen in December 2009 will attempt to facilitate a global response to the threat of climate change caused by sustained human inaction and industrialisation. The latest scientific data on climate change overwhelmingly indicates that allowing the emission of greenhouse gases to continue at their current rates will contribute to an overall increase in global temperature and a sea-level rise of approximately one metre or more by 2100.1 This is primarily attributed to melting and dynamic ice loss in Antarctica and Greenland which has been directly correlated to the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. While many climate scientists recognise that the true impact on societal function from climate change still remains largely hypothesised, they encourage at least a consideration of the negative impacts to humans and ecosystems that may occur at varying levels of climate change, the levels of negative impacts that societies are willing and able to tolerate and the levels of climate change at which ‘tipping point’ or irreversible damage is done.
