Mainau Declaration

The name denotes that these declarations were presented on Mainau Island in Lake Constance, the traditional venue of the last day of the one-week meeting.

By total military use of weapons feasible today, the earth can be contaminated with radioactivity to such an extent that whole peoples can be annihilated.

In response to the possibility of human-induced climate change, the United Nations established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to provide the world’s leaders a summary of the current state of relevant scientific knowledge.

While by no means perfect, we believe that the efforts that have led to the current IPCC Fifth Assessment Report represent the best source of information regarding the present state of knowledge on climate change.

We say this not as experts in the field of climate change, but rather as a diverse group of scientists who have a deep respect for and understanding of the integrity of the scientific process.

Although there remains uncertainty as to the precise extent of climate change, the conclusions of the scientific community contained in the latest IPCC report are alarming, especially in the context of the identified risks of maintaining human prosperity in the face of greater than a 2 °C rise in average global temperature.

The report concludes that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the likely cause of the current global warming of the Earth.

Based on the IPCC assessment, the world must make rapid progress towards lowering current and future greenhouse gas emissions to minimize the substantial risks of climate change.

Failure to act will subject future generations of humanity to unconscionable and unacceptable risk.The following Nobel laureates have thus far signed the Mainau Declaration 2015 or expressed their full support after its presentation.