Evidence for climate change is incontrovertible. by WMO / EPA / UN News & agencies 1:25pm 2nd Dec, 2009   Dec 17, 2009    Leaked UN Report shows cuts offered at Copenhagen would lead to 3C Rise.    A confidential UN analysis obtained by the Guardian reveals that the emissions cuts offered so far at the Copenhagen climate change summit will lead to global temperatures rising by an average of 3C.    The analysis seriously undermines the statements by governments that they are aiming to limit emissions to a level ensuring no more than a 2C temperature rise over the next century, and indicates that the last 24 hours of negotiations will be extremely challenging.    A rise of 3C would mean up to 170 million more people suffering severe coastal floods and 550 million more at risk of hunger, according to the 2006 Stern economic review of climate change for the UK government - as well as leaving up to 50% of species facing extinction. Even a rise of 2C would lead to sharp decline in tropical crop yields, more flooding and droughts.    The paper was drafted by the UN secretariat running the Copenhagen summit and is dated 11pm on Tuesday evening. It is marked "do not distribute" and "initial draft". It shows a gap of up to 4.2 gigatonnes of carbon emissions between the present pledges and the required level of 44Gt, which is required to staying below a 2C rise. No higher offers have since been made.    "Unless the remaining gap of around 1.9-4.2Gt is closed and Annexe 1 parties [countries] commit themselves to strong action before and after 2020, global emissions will remain on an unsustainable pathway that could lead to concentrations equal or above 550 parts per million, with the related temperature rise around 3C," it says.    The goal of keeping the increase in global average temperatures below 2C, relative to pre-industrial levels, has become the figure that all rich countries have committed to trying to achieve in Copenhagen.    However, 102 of the world"s poorest countries are holding out for emission cuts that would result in a temperature increase of no more than 1.5C. Anything below that, they say, would leave billions of people in the world homeless, unable to feed their people and open to catastrophic weather-related disasters.    Further steps are possible and necessary to fill the gap. This could be done by increasing the aggregated emission reductions to at least 30% below the baseline levels, further stronger voluntary actions by developing countries to reduce their emissions by at least 20% below business as usual and; reducing further emissions from deforestation and international aviation and marine shipping," says the internal paper.    Greenpeace campaigner Joss Garman said: "This is an explosive document that shows the numbers on the table at the moment would lead to nothing less than climate breakdown and an extraordinarily dangerous situation for humanity. The UN is admitting in private that the pledges made by world leaders would lead to a 3C rise in temperatures. The science shows that could lead to the collapse of the Amazon rainforest, crippling water shortages across Africa, South America and Australia and the near-extinction of tropical coral reefs, and that"s just the start of it."    The biggest remaining obstacles that remain are who pays for the fight against climate change and how much, emissions cuts and how promises of cuts are verified. Earlier, US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, pushed the negotiations forward by committing the US to contribute to a $100bn (£62bn) a year fund from 2020. Indonesia today followed China"s lead in softening its opposition to international monitoring of carbon cuts.    Earlier this week, Rajendra Pachauri, who heads the UN"s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told the Guardian that even with 1.5C rises, many communities would suffer. "Some of the most vulnerable regions in the world will be worst affected. These will be the largest countries in the developing world. They have little infrastructure that might protect them from climate change. The tragedy of the situation is that those countries that have not at all contributed to the problem of climate change will be the ones that are most affected," he said.    "Some parts of the world, which even with a 1.5C rise, will suffer great hardship and lose their ability to lead a decent and stable form of existence. If we are going to be concerned about these communities, then maybe 1.5C is what we should be targeting. But if we can find means by which those communities can be helped to withstand the impact of climate change with substantial flow of finances, then maybe one can go to 2C."    8 December    2000-2009: The warmest decade on Record. (World Meteorological Organization)    The year 2009 is likely to rank in the top 10 warmest on record since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850, according to data sources compiled by WMO. The global combined sea-surface and land surface air temperature for 2009 (January–October) is currently estimated above the 1961–1990 annual average. The current nominal ranking of 2009, which does not account for uncertainties in the annual averages, places it as the fifth-warmest year. The decade from 2000 to 2009 was warmer than the decade from 1990 to 1999, which in turn was warmer than from 1980 to 1989.    Dec. 7, 2009    EPA: Greenhouse Gases Threaten Public Health and the Environment.    Science overwhelmingly shows greenhouse gas concentrations at unprecedented levels due to human activity.    After a thorough examination of the scientific evidence and careful consideration of public comments, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that greenhouse gases (GHGs) threaten the public health and welfare of the American people. EPA also finds that GHG emissions from on-road vehicles contribute to that threat.    GHGs are the primary driver of climate change, which can lead to hotter, longer heat waves that threaten the health of the sick, poor or elderly; increases in ground-level ozone pollution linked to asthma and other respiratory illnesses; as well as other threats to the health and welfare of Americans.    “These long-overdue findings cement 2009’s place in history as the year when the United States Government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution and seizing the opportunity of clean-energy reform,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “Business leaders, security experts, government officials, concerned citizens and the United States Supreme Court have called for enduring, pragmatic solutions to reduce the greenhouse gas pollution that is causing climate change.”    EPA’s final findings respond to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that GHGs fit within the Clean Air Act definition of air pollutants. The findings do not in and of themselves impose any emission reduction requirements but rather allow EPA to finalize the GHG standards proposed earlier this year for new light-duty vehicles as part of the joint rulemaking with the Department of Transportation. On-road vehicles contribute more than 23 percent of total U.S. GHG emissions.    EPA’s endangerment finding covers emissions of six key greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride – that have been the subject of scrutiny and intense analysis for decades by scientists in the United States and around the world.    Scientific consensus shows that as a result of human activities, GHG concentrations in the atmosphere are at record high levels and data shows that the Earth has been warming over the past 100 years, with the steepest increase in warming in recent decades. The evidence of human-induced climate change goes beyond observed increases in average surface temperatures; it includes melting ice in the Arctic, melting glaciers around the world, increasing ocean temperatures, rising sea levels, acidification of the oceans due to excess carbon dioxide, changing precipitation patterns, and changing patterns of ecosystems and wildlife.    Dec. 2009    Pachauri defends UN Climate Science. (Bloomberg)    Rajendra Pachauri, the top United Nations climate-change scientist, said the panel he heads is “transparent and objective,” dismissing allegations by global-warming skeptics that UN data were manipulated.    The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in 2007 that global warming is “unequivocal” and rising human greenhouse-gas emissions were “very likely” the main cause.    Speaking today during the opening session of the global summit in Copenhagen that aims to devise a deal to fight climate change, Pachauri said he had confidence in his panel’s work.    The IPCC’s report is “based on measurements made by many independent institutions worldwide that demonstrate significant changes on land, in the atmosphere, the oceans and in the ice- covered areas of the earth,” he said. The study was subject to “extensive and repeated review by experts as well as governments,” with 2,500 expert reviewers, Pachauri said.    “The internal consistency from the multiple lines of evidence strongly supports the work of the scientific community, including those individuals singled out in these e-mail exchanges,” Pachauri, 69, said.    The IPCC assessment process “is designed to ensure consideration of all relevant scientific information from established journals with robust peer-review processes,” Pachauri said. “There is full opportunity for experts in the field to draw attention to any piece of published literature.”    A leading British climate change economist has warned that those who doubt the science of global warming are confused and said their skepticism should not derail efforts to strike a climate deal in Denmark.    Nicholas Stern, who wrote the British government report on global warming, said it was vital that countries managed to agree on measures to tackle global warming. "We have a moment now when we could get a strategy agreed," he said. "If it were to dissolve in disarray it would not be easy to put this momentum back together again."    He said that if countries did not manage to reach agreement, world temperatures could rise by five degrees Celsius (nine degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, making much of the world uninhabitable.    Some of the scientists whose private e-mails were stolen by hackers have said they believe those who leaked the documents had deliberately tried to undermine the Copenhagen conference.    December 4, 2009    Open Letter to US Congress from US Scientists on Climate Change and Recently Stolen Emails.    As U.S. scientists with substantial expertise on climate change and its impacts on natural ecosystems, our built environment and human well-being, we want to assure policy makers and the public of the integrity of the underlying scientific research and the need for urgent action to reduce heat-trapping emissions. In the last few weeks, opponents of taking action on climate change have misrepresented both the content and the significance of stolen emails to obscure public understanding of climate science and the scientific process. We would like to set the record straight.    The body of evidence that human activity is the dominant cause of global warming is overwhelming. The content of the stolen emails has no impact whatsoever on our overall understanding that human activity is driving dangerous levels of global warming. The scientific process depends on open access to methodology, data, and a rigorous peer-review process. The robust exchange of ideas in the peer-reviewed literature regarding climate science is evidence of the high degree of integrity in this process.    As the recent letter to Congress from 18 leading U.S. scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Meteorological Society, states:    “Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science. … If we are to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change, emissions of greenhouse gases must be dramatically reduced.”    These “multiple independent lines of evidence” are drawn from numerous public and private research centers all across the United States and beyond, including several independent analyses of surface temperature data. Even without including analyses from the UK research center from which the emails were stolen, the body of evidence underlying our understanding of human-caused global warming remains robust.    Evidence for climate change is incontrovertible.    Multiple, independent lines of evidence point to the fact that burning fossil fuels and destroying forests is overloading the atmosphere with carbon and rapidly changing the climate for the worse. This evidence, along with independently developed climate models from many sources, indicates that the more we reduce emissions, the lower the future risks from climate change.    The world"s leading scientific bodies, including the National Academy of Sciences, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), have affirmed the evidence. In fact, the latest scientific data indicate that climate change is occurring more rapidly than the IPCC previously projected.    The findings of the USGCRP, IPCC and other scientific bodies are based on the work of thousands of scientists from hundreds of research institutions. The University of East Anglia"s Climate Research Unit (CRU) is just one among many such research institutions. Even without data from CRU, there is still an overwhelming body of evidence that human activity triggering dangerous levels of global warming.    Contrarians are desperately promoting conspiracy theories.    Industry-funded groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) are mischaracterizing the e-mails to advance ludicrous conspiracy theories about climate science, and many bloggers, as well as radio and TV personalities, have been parroting their message. Their intent is to undercut an international climate summit in Copenhagen that begins later this week.    After decades of failing to poke holes in the substance of climate science, opponents of taking action have turned to attacking climate scientists. They have resorted to twisting the words of scientists from illegally obtained e-mails to manufacture doubt about climate science.    Meanwhile, oil and coal companies and their allies continue to spend millions of dollars to confuse the public on climate science and climate solutions. They are the real sources of disinformation and spin in the climate debate.    Nov 2009    Climate Change Sceptics and Lobbyists put World at Risk, by David Adam.    Climate change sceptics and fossil fuel companies that have lobbied against action on greenhouse gas emissions have squandered the world"s chance to avoid dangerous global warming, a key adviser to the government has said.    Professor Bob Watson, chief scientist at the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs, said a decade of inaction on climate change meant it was now virtually impossible to limit global temperature rise to 2C. He said the delay meant the world would have to stabilise warming between 3C and 4C.    His comments come ahead of key UN negotiations on a new global climate treaty in Copenhagen next month that the UK government insists should still aim for a 2C goal, despite doubts over whether a meaningful deal can be sealed.    In an interview with the Guardian, Watson said: "Those that have opposed a deal on climate, which include elements of the fossil fuel industry, have clearly made making a 2C target much, much harder, if not impossible. They"ve clearly put the world at risk of far more adverse effects of climate change."    The decision of former US president George W Bush to walk away from the Kyoto protocol, the existing global treaty on carbon emissions, sent a message to other countries not to act, he said. "The last decade was a lost opportunity. Elements within the fossil fuel industry clearly had major implications on the Bush administration."    He added: "I think they"ve clearly been to blame, without any question at all. But you have to say it is not just the fossil lobby. Within the US, there doesn"t seem to be strong support for the Kyoto protocol in both parties. Even Obama now will have to persuade a still somewhat sceptical Senate that we should be doing this."    Disturbingly, the Copenhagen talks are not expected to deliver a legally binding treaty as originally hoped, but could still make progress on issues such as emissions cuts for rich countries and financial assistance for the developing world. A strong agreement rests on how far Obama is willing to push towards strong carbon cuts in the US.    European officials fear the agreement could eventually do no better than return emissions in 2020 to 1990 levels; scientists say they must fall by 25-40% to have a good chance of staying within the 2C limit.    Watson, a former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said: "I think we will do well to stabilise between 3 and 4C. Even that is going to take strong political action to decarbonise the energy system and to require us peaking greenhouse gas emissions in the next 10 years," he said. "We have to make sure we understand what it would mean to see 3-4C. How would we adapt our agriculture, our water resources, coastal protection and human health systems."    A Guardian poll this year showed that almost nine out of 10 climate scientists thought the 2C target would be missed.    The British government last month published a map that laid out the stark details of a world warmer by 4C. It showed that the rise would not be evenly spread across the globe, with temperature rises much larger than 4C in high latitudes such as the Arctic. Because the sea warms more slowly, average land temperature will increase by 5.5C, which scientists said would shrink yields for all major cereal crops on all regions of production. A 4C rise would also have a major impact on water availability, with supplies limited for nearly 2 billion people by 2080.    Climate Change - The Science. (UN News)    During the twentieth century, the earth’s surface warmed by about 0.74° C, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Science has made great strides in determining the potential causes for that change. The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Reports in 2007 stated that warming of the climate system is “unequivocal” and that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is “very likely” due to the rise in greenhouse gases generated by human activity.    The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report observed that between 1970 and 2004, greenhouse gas emissions increased by 70 per cent, and carbon dioxide (CO2) – by far the largest source with 77 per cent of total emissions – grew by about 80 per cent. Atmospheric concentrations of CO2, methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N20), the IPCC found, had risen markedly since 1750 due to human activity, and today, far exceed pre-industrial values.    Projections indicate that if emissions are allowed to rise at their current pace and double from pre-industrial levels, the world would likely face a 2° - 4.5° C temperature rise by 2100, with a 3°C increase most likely.    There is near universal acceptance that complete avoidance of climate change is now impossible and that adaptive capacity needs to be improved everywhere, including in high-income countries. Disruption in the climate system is manifesting itself around the world through more frequent floods, droughts and heat waves whose severity will only increase. A wide range of adaptation options is available, including disaster risk reduction efforts, insurance and other risk transfer mechanisms. Their widespread use is needed to reduce the vulnerability of high-risk communities to inevitable climate impacts.    Under the IPCC’s most stringent emissions reduction scenario, the world has a 50 per cent chance of limiting further temperature increases to 2° C. Achieving that would require a comprehensive global mitigation effort, including a further tightening of existing climate policies in developed countries and concurrent emissions reductions in developing nations. In other words, the world would need to see an emissions peak before 2020 and a 50 per cent reduction below 1990 levels by 2050. For industrialized nations, that translates to a 25-40 per cent emissions reduction below 1990 levels by 2020.    The impacts associated with such a scenario are serious but widely regarded as more manageable if a risk reduction approach is fully embraced. However, without action, there is overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change will threaten economic growth and survival of the world’s most vulnerable populations.    Examples of climate change impacts    By 2020, up to to 250 million people in Africa alone will face increased water shortages. Yields from rain-fed agriculture (dominant method) could fall by up to 50 per cent in some African countries.    About 30 per cent of all plant and animal species will likely face increased risk of extinction if global average temperature increases exceed 1.5°-2.5° C.    Widespread melting of glaciers and snow cover will create risk of flash floods and, over time, reduce annual melt water from major mountain ranges (i.e.: Hindu-Kush, Himalaya, Andes), where more than one billion people live.    Seven of ten disasters are now climate-related.    More than 20 million people were displaced by sudden climate-related disasters in 2008 alone. At least 200 million could be displaced as a result of climate impacts by 2050. Visit the related web page
	Next (more recent) news item
	Next (older) news item