Marlowe Hood, Yahoo News 17 Nov 07;
The world's leading authority on climate change adopted Saturday a landmark report that warns that the impacts of global warming are already visible, will accelerate this century and are potentially irreversible.
"The parties to the governments adopted the full report, consisting of a shorter synthesis and a longer version," said Jose Romero, a Swiss delegate and one of the reports many authors.
"This is the strongest document the IPCC has produced," said Hans Verolme, director of the World Wildlife FundÂ’s Global Climate Change Program.
He said that the synthesis said more clearly than any previous version, for example, that global warming was likely to be "irreversible".
"It is a tremendous result -- the overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change is here. Now the ball is in the court of politicians."
The document, to be formally presented later Saturday in the Spanish city of Valencia by UN chief Ban Ki-moon, encapsulates the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's latest findings on the effects of greenhouse gases.
It seeks to guide politicians facing tough decisions on cutting pollution from fossil fuels, shifting to cleaner energy, bolstering defences against extreme weather, and other issues set to intensify due to climate change.
Ban warned Saturday in a published commentary to the first IPCC overview since 2001 that the world was on the verge of a "catastrophe" due to global warming.
The draft report from the Nobel-winning IPCC, which was not expected to change significantly, said the evidence of a human role in the warming of the planet was now "unequivocal."
Retreating glaciers and loss of snow in Alpine regions, thinning Arctic summer sea ice and thawing permafrost shows that climate change is already on the march, it said.
By 2100, global average surface temperatures could rise by between 1.1 C (1.98 F) and 6.4 C (11.52 F) compared to 1980-99 levels, while sea levels will rise by between 18 and 59 centimetres (7.2 and 23.2 inches), it forecasted.
Heatwaves, rainstorms, tropical cyclones and surges in sea level are among the events expected to become more frequent, more widespread or more intense this century.
"All countries" will be affected, but poorer countries -- ironically those least to blame for causing the problem -- will be hit hardest and they have the least resources for coping, according to the draft report.
Publication of the report comes in the run-up to a December 3-14 conference in Bali, Indonesia, where the world's nations will gather to ponder the climate crisis.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is tasked with setting a "roadmap" of negotiations for intensifying cuts in carbon emissions beyond 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol runs out.
Carbon pollution, emitted especially by the burning of oil, gas and coal, traps heat from the Sun, thus warming the Earth's surface and inflicting changes to weather systems.
Emissions are spiralling, driven more recently by coal-fired plants in fast-growing China and India.
In its present form, Kyoto will not even make a dent in this threat.
In a commentary published in the International Herald Tribune on Saturday Ban called for urgent action on global warming, writing "I believe we are on the verge of a catastrophe if we do not act....
"I am not scare-mongering. But I believe we are nearing a tipping point," wrote the UN chief.
But he characterised the report's conclusions as "encouraging."
"The over-arching message: we can beat this. There are real and affordable ways to deal with climate change," wrote Ban.
The IPCC, which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize -- alongside former US vice president Al Gore -- for its neutral and detailed assessments of global warming and its impacts, was established by the UN in 1988 to evaluate the risk of climate change.
A stark vision of a hot, harsh world
UN report warns of global warming's consequences, offers measures to tackle it
Today Online 19 Nov 07
VALENCIA (Spain) — A Nobel-winning United Nations panel of scientists issued a stark vision of human hardship and vanishing species in a world growing increasingly hot, prompting UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to challenge governments to join hands against climate change.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared this year's Nobel Peace prize with former United States Vice-President Al Gore, adopted a report on Saturday after five days of sometimes tense negotiations among 140 national delegations.
Climate change is here, the report said, as witnessed by melting snow and glaciers, higher average temperatures and rising sea levels. This could threaten several small island-nations and severely disrupt hundreds of millions of people living in low-lying mega-deltas, especially in Asia and Africa.
If unchecked, global warming will spread hunger and disease, put further stress on water resources, cause fiercer storms and more frequent droughts, and could drive up to 70 per cent of plant and animal species to extinction, it said.
"The world's scientists have spoken clearly and with one voice," Mr Ban said on Saturday, looking ahead to a critical climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, in two weeks. "I expect the world's policymakers to do the same."
The report offered dozens of measures for avoiding the worst catastrophes if taken together — at a cost of less than 0.12 per cent of the global economy annually until 2050. They ranged from switching to nuclear and gas-fired power stations, developing hybrid cars, using more efficient electrical appliances and managing cropland to store more carbon.
The report is intended to be a guide for some 10,000 delegates to the 13th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali next month to set a political course for fighting climate change.
"I look forward to seeing the US and China playing a more constructive role starting from the Bali conference," Mr Ban told reporters. "Both countries can lead in their own way."
Meanwhile, advocacy groups praised the panel for resisting political pressures. "This report is the strongest one yet from the IPCC," said Ms Stephanie Tunmore of Greenpeace. — AGENCIES
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Climate change report to warn of potentially 'irreversible' impacts Marlowe Hood, Yahoo News 16 Nov 07;
Greenhouse gases rising faster than UN forecasts: report Yahoo News 15 Nov 07;
Climate change panel esteemed but flawed Arthur Max, Associated Press, Yahoo News 14 Nov 07
No consensus on IPCC's level of ignorance John Christy, BBC News 13 Nov 07
Failure to tackle climate peril 'criminally irresponsible', IPCC told Marlowe Hood, Yahoo News 12 Nov 07;
