The impacts of climate change on biodiversity threaten much, if not all, of WWF's mission. Emissions of global warming gases continue to rise as the world burns ever more coal, oil and gas for energy. The risk of destabilising the world's climate system is growing every day. Reporting from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has verified that global temperatures will increase by up to 5.8[degrees]C by 2100. This could lead to potentially devastating effects, including sea level rise, coastal flooding, extreme weather events, food shortages and species extinctions.

WWF funded South Africa's first Climate Change Report in 2001. The Heat is On… exposes how climate change threatens to make vast areas of this country uninhabitable for the plants that have thrived there for millennia. Says co-author Dr Guy Midgley: 'Within the next 50 to 100 years, the biomes as we currently know them – including fynbos, grasslands, succulent karoo and forest – might well be reduced to between 35 and 55% of their present extent. Evidence such as this demands that we start taking climate change seriously.'

Unfortunately, the opportunity to do this - at the World Summit on Sustainable Development - was not taken. The final Plan of Implementation saw the US, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Canada and Australia succeeding in protecting their fossil fuel interests, with no targets of any kind for the uptake of renewable energy.

For more information, go to WWF's Climate Change site: www.panda.org/climate

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