The planetary machinery tends to be jumpy, this is to respond disproportionately to disruptions that come with the manmade greenhouse effect.

What is the difference between a 2°C world and a 4°C world? Human civilisation!

Either the Earth System would undergo major phase transitions as a result of unchecked human pressure on nature's capacities and resources or a "Great Transformation" towards global sustainability would be initiated in due course. Neither transitions nor transformations will be manageable without novel forms of global governance and markets.

In a sense the U.S. is climate illiterate. If you look at global polls about what the public knows about climate change even in Brazil, China you have more people who know about the problem and think deep cuts in emission are needed.

Neither transitions nor transformations will be manageable without novel forms of global governance and markets

The planetary machinery tends to be jumpy, this is to respond disproportionately to disruptions that come with the manmade greenhouse effect.

The bottom billion people don't contribute at all to climate change - maybe 1 percent of emissions, they could double or triple their emissions and the climate would not be destabilised.