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CONSERVATION GROUPS’ COMMENTS <br />UNCOMPAHGRE FIELD OFFICE RMP AND DEIS <br />6 <br />up from 398.93 ppm the same month a year earlier.13 <br /> <br />Climate change has been intensively studied and acknowledged at the global, national, <br />and regional scales. Climate change is being fueled by the human-caused release of greenhouse <br />gas emissions, in particular carbon dioxide and methane. The Intergovernmental Panel on <br />Climate Change (“IPCC”) is a Nobel Prize-winning scientific body within the United Nations <br />that reviews and assesses the most recent scientific, technical, and socio-economic information <br />relevant to our understanding of climate change. In its most recent report to policymakers in <br />2014, the IPCC provided a summary of our understanding of human-caused climate change. <br />Among other things, the IPCC summarized:14 <br /> <br />• Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic <br />emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes <br />have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems. <br /> <br />• Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the <br />observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere <br />and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, and sea <br />level has risen. <br /> <br />• Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have increased since the pre-industrial <br />era, driven largely by economic and population growth, and are now higher than <br />ever. This has led to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and <br />nitrous oxide that are unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. Their <br />effects, together with those of other anthropogenic drivers, have been detected <br />throughout the climate system and are extremely likely to have been the dominant <br />cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. <br /> <br />• In recent decades, changes in climate have caused impacts on natural and human <br />systems on all continents and across the oceans. Impacts are due to observed <br />climate change, irrespective of its cause, indicating the sensitivity of natural and <br />human systems to changing climate. <br /> <br />• Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long- <br />lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood <br />of severe, pervasive, and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems. Limiting <br />climate change would require substantial and sustained reductions in greenhouse <br />gas emissions which, together with adaptation, can limit climate change risks. <br /> <br /> 13 NOAA, Earth System Research Laboratory, Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, available <br />at: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/. 14 IPCC AR5, Summary for Policymakers (March 2014) available at: <br />http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf (attached as <br />Exhibit 5).