By Stephen Leahy

Feb 5 (IPS) – With the stark realisation that global warming is transforming our world, there will be crazy new era of “greenwashing”, desperate “geo-engineering” schemes, “grandfathering” of newly-built coal power plants and carbon-credit “profiteering”, environmentalists warn.

Welcome to the battle to save ourselves and future generations from the worst impacts of climate change, like increased floods, droughts and storms.

The scientific evidence proving that climate change is caused by human activities is now overwhelming with the widely-anticipated release of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Feb. 2. And many scientists and environmental activists say the only important scientific questions remaining are how bad it will get and what can be done to lessen the impacts.

Most advocate immediate and drastic reductions in the greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, emitted mainly in the transportation and industrial sectors, which contribute to global warming.

But many of the most heavily industrialised nations find the economic costs of this prescription hard to swallow. Instead, some, led by the United States, are looking at geo-engineering schemes — large-scale attempts to manipulate the environment to produce environmental change, according to the ETC Group, a Canadian-based non-governmental organisation.

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