Introduction

Statistics and science struggle to definitively attribute any one event to climate change. Given the diversity of values and vulnerabilities across the globe, and uneven rate of warming masked by the two degree average, there cannot be one measure of dangerous climate change for the whole of humanity and the planet. The end of 2013 saw a flight from the middle ground of climate policy. In Australia, the UK and Canada the governments drew back from previous climate change commitments. In March 2015 the UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change suggested that 80" cuts by 2050 target set out in the UK climate change Act may not be ambitious enough. Interviews and English-language news stories are focused to demonstrate the arguments being made about public representations of dangerous climate change. The chapter also presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book.