A lot of scientists are now saying that the temperature is going up regardless of what we do or don't do so that we have to make plans for rising seas.
Always hard to discuss such things without a link to a report that supports your interpretation of the claim. It obviously
does make a difference how fast the temperature is going to rise, and we can influence that by reducing the CO2 emissions.
As the latest version of a US government climate report (
https://science2017.globalchange.gov/downloads/CSSR2017_FullReport.pdf) confirms, and its conclusions are also largely similar to those of the last IPCC report (just a bit more up to date and based on a denser sampling of observations), Climate change is mostly caused by human activity. If humans cause it, then humans can try to mitigate it. But inaction will not improve the situation. The point being, that if we do not take action, we may reach tipping points that are irreversible sooner rather than later. Also, the cost of countering the unwanted effects will grow higher if we postpone action longer, to the point that it becomes impossible to finance it.
US government climate report: Climate change is real and our faulthttps://arstechnica.com/science/2017/11/us-government-climate-report-climate-change-is-real-and-our-fault/Politics (which will be moderated) aside, the report itself offers a lot of useful info to inject further discussions with some more factual information, even if the report is obviously somewhat USA centric, and has yet to be fully finalized.
Cheers,
Bart
P.S. As always, and because it is mentioned in the above-linked report, it's important to understand some basic scientific jargon:
•
Confidence in the validity of a finding based on the type, amount, quality, strength, and consistency of evidence (such as mechanistic understanding, theory, data, models, and expert judgment); the skill, range, and consistency of model projections; and the degree of agreement within the body of literature.
•
Likelihood, or probability of an effect or impact occurring, is based on measures of uncertainty expressed probabilistically (based on the degree of understanding or knowledge, e.g., resulting from evaluating statistical analyses of observations or model results or on expert judgment).
So Confidence levels deal with data quality and consensus about it, Likelihood is about probability. Since the data quality is improving in recent times, the models keep getting better in predicting the outcome of different scenarios. The hardest part to predict is how human behavior will change to cope with the mostly unwanted consequences.