U.N. report: Urgent action needed on ''severe'' climate change by AP / CNN 1:50am 18th Nov, 2007   November 17, 2007    U.N. report: Urgent action needed on ''severe'' climate change. (CNN)    Climate change is "severe and so sweeping that only urgent, global action" can head it off, a United Nations scientific panel said in a report on global warming issued Saturday.    The report produced by the Nobel prize-winning panel warns of the devastating impact for developing countries and the threat of species extinction posed by the climate crisis.    U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, presenting the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in Valencia, Spain, warned that some of the effects of rising levels of greenhouse gases may already be irreversible.    The U.N. head said the situation was already "so severe and so sweeping that only urgent, global action" could head off the crisis.    The report warns that in spite of the protocols adopted by many Western countries after Kyoto, greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rise by between 25 and 90 per cent by 2030.    The Kyoto treaty was a global effort to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The United States is one of only a few nations not to have signed the protocol, which expires in 2012.    Scientists say up to an 85 percent cut in carbon dioxide emissions is needed to head off potential catastrophic changes that could lead to more floods and famine.    Ban Ki-moon told the panel he was hopeful that the report''s findings could help bring about "a real breakthrough" in climate change negotiations in Bali, Indonesia, next month.    The climate change panel was delivering its fourth and final report on the science of climate change and the impact of human-produced greenhouse gases at a conference in Valencia.    The Bali talks will set the groundwork for the successor to the Kyoto treaty.    They will also guide global climate policy for at least the next decade, and dictate the types of long-term investment decisions made by big industries and utilities.    Written by more than 2,500 top government-appointed scientists, Saturday''s report contains a summary for policymakers attending the Bali talks, outlining the scientific evidence for global warming and ways to deal with it.    The U.N. panel -- the recent recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore -- was asked if goals of reducing emissions could be achieved without the contribution of China and especially the United States, which was one of only a few countries that did not sign up to the Kyoto treaty.    Ban Ki-moon said he had "high expectations" that both countries would play a "constructive role" at the upcoming talks. "Both countries I think can and should lead each in its own way," he said.    Writing in the International Herald Tribune on Friday, the U.N. head said the world was "on the verge of a catastrophe if we do not act."    Nov. 17, 2007    UN Panel gives Dire Warming Forecast. (AP)    Global warming is "unequivocal" and carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere commits the world to sea levels rising an average of up to 4.6 feet, the world''s top climate experts warned Saturday in their most authoritative report to date.    "Only urgent, global action will do," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, calling on the United States and China — the world''s two biggest polluters — to do more to slow global climate change.    "I look forward to seeing the U.S. and China playing a more constructive role," Ban told reporters. "Both countries can lead in their own way."    Ban, however, advised against assigning blame.    Climate change imperils "the most precious treasures of our planet," he said, and the effects are "so severe and so sweeping that only urgent global action will do. We are all in this together. We must work together."    According to the U.N. panel of scientists, whose latest report is a synthesis of three previous ones, enough carbon dioxide already has built up that it imperils islands, coastlines and a fifth to two-thirds of the world''s species.    As early as 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages, residents of Asia''s large cities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding, according to the report.    Europeans can expect extensive species loss, and North Americans will experience longer and hotter heat waves and greater competition for water, says the report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the Nobel Prize with Al Gore this year.    The panel portrays the Earth hurtling toward a warmer climate at a quickening pace and warns of inevitable human suffering. It says emissions of carbon, mainly from fossil fuels, must stabilize by 2015 and go down after that.    In the best-case scenario, temperatures will keep rising from carbon already in the atmosphere, the report said. Even if factories were shut down today and cars taken off the roads, the average sea level will reach as high as 4.6 feet above that in the preindustrial period, or about 1850.    "We have already committed the world to sea level rise," the panel''s chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, said. But if the Greenland ice sheet melts, the scientists said, they could not predict by how many feet the seas will rise, drowning coastal cities.    Climate change is here, they said, as witnessed by melting snow and glaciers, higher average temperatures and rising sea levels. 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 percent of plant and animal species to extinction, according to the panel''s report.    The report was adopted by 140 national delegations. It lays out blueprints for avoiding the worst catastrophes — and various possible outcomes, depending on how quickly and decisively action is taken.    "The world''s scientists have spoken clearly and with one voice," Ban said, looking ahead to an important climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, next month. "I expect the world''s policy makers to do the same."    The report is intended to both set the stage and serve as a guide for the conference, at which world leaders will begin discussing a global climate change treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.    That treaty, which expires in 2012, required industrial nations to reduce greenhouse gases and a smooth transition to a new treaty is needed to avoid upsetting the fledgling carbon markets.    "This report will have an incredible political impact," Yvo de Boer, the U.N.''s top climate change official, told The Associated Press. "It''s a signal that politicians cannot afford to ignore."    The United States opted out of Kyoto in 2001, arguing that the science was unproven and that the burden of mandatory emission cuts was unfair since it excluded fast-growing China and India.    Chief U.S. delegate Sharon Hays said doubts have been dispelled. "What''s changed since 2001 is the scientific certainty that this is happening," she said in a conference call late Friday. She did not indicate that Washington would abandon its policy of voluntary emission cuts.    China and India have said any measures impinging on their development and efforts to lift their people from poverty were unacceptable.    Ban said a new agreement should provide funding to help poor countries develop clean energy resources, adapt to climate conditions and give them the technology to help themselves.    He said he witnessed the devastation of climate change in disappearing glaciers of Antarctica, the deforested Amazon and under the ozone hole in Chile. "These scenes are as frightening as a science fiction movie," said Ban. "But they are even more terrifying because they are real."
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