Turns out that it's not only India and African countries that are already facing climate change threats requiring immediate adaptation strategies. A report released a week ago by the U.S. Global Change Research Program under NOAA’s leadership highlights impacts already being experienced in the United States. The report, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, doesn't recommend specific policy responses, but it does highlight the need for responses by sector and region.
In addition to discussing the impacts of climate change in the U.S., the report also highlights the choices we face in response to human-induced climate change. It is clear that impacts in the United States are already occurring and are projected to increase in the future, particularly if the concentration of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continues to rise. So, choices about how we manage greenhouse gas emissions will have far-reaching consequences for climate change impacts. Similarly, there are choices to be made about adaptation strategies that can help to reduce or avoid some of the undesirable impacts of climate change. This report provides many of the scientific underpinnings for effective decisions to be made – at the national and at the regional level.
The link above provides the full report as well as summaries of key findings, and links to relevant IPCC reports and news articles.
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