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A UN Climate Change report due to be released later on Friday in Stockholm will declare that climate change has actually been underestimated and that its effects will continue to be upon us faster and in a more intense manner.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's fifth assessment report - which is expected to establish a 95% certainty that global warming is happening - should spearhead a drive towards a comprehensive deal on sustainable development goals expected when the MDGs expire in 2015.
The latest assessment will again point fingers at humans as the main culprits as the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Christiana Figueres explains: "This report constitutes an alarm clock moment for the world, because this report will tell us again that everything that we thought knew on climate change is actually been underestimated, that the effects of climate change will be upon us faster and in a more intense fashion than we had thought."
The report is expected to focus on the impacts of man-made greenhouse gases - such as carbon dioxide - that remain one of the primary causes of global warming.
Figueres has meanwhile also attempted to address denialists who continue to express doubt over the veracity of climate change concerns: "We as individuals, as human beings, have the evidence of climate change in front of our faces. Those of you who live in New York will remember Hurricane Sandy, those US citizens who live in the Midwest will remember the droughts in the Midwest, so you don't even have to read the science - you just see climate change in front of you. So the climate denialists are no longer attacking the science, what they're beginning to attack now because they've lost the battle on science, is they're beginning to attack the solutions, beginning to say the solutions not good enough, not fast enough."
The report is expected to provide a shot in the arm to negotiations on the post-2015 agenda, as Figueres attests: "The reason why I'm optimistic that we will avert the worst effects on climate is because we frankly don't have another option, we have to do this. There is a moral imperative for us to do this, none of us can stand up to our children and grand children and say I knew but I didn't do the best that I could."
The report will also predict future temperature increases, rising sea levels due to melting ice caps and the frequency of extreme weather conditions, all of which must inform policy debates on how best to tackle climate change and its consequences.
