Grim UN climate report calls for "breakthrough"

In its final report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describe the evidence of human-induced climate change as "unequivocal" and its effects on the climate system as "abrupt and irreversible". In line with previous research by the panel, by 2100, global average surface temperatures could rise between 1.1 and 6.4°C compared to 1999. Increases of temperature by more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels would risk the extinction of 20-30% of the world's plant and animal species. Although "all countries" will be affected by global warming, developing countries would suffer the highest impact.

--image1--The 23-page report, released on 17 November as a summary of three exhaustive reviews launched earlier this year, is intended to serve as a "pocket guide" for policy makers on how to act quickly against the most severe consequences of climate change. More specifically it provides a key input for the UN Climate Change Conference and the 3^rd Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol set to begin in Bali on 3 December. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon urged the world's leaders to push for a "real breakthrough" at these meetings by investing in new technologies and global funds to help reach safer, more stable levels of greenhouse gas concentrations.

An earlier IPCC report had found that reducing emissions can be met at moderate cost relative to global GDP, concluding that the costs of inaction would be much higher than the costs of action.

Reality even worse than report predicts

Although the report already paints a dire picture, many experts and the report's authors themselves admit that the document well underplays the consequence of climate change. In the five years of existence, the IPCC, made up of scientists and government experts, has recorded much stronger trends in climate change than predicted beforehand.

"The sense of urgency when you put these pieces together is new and striking," Martin Perry, a co-author of the 2^nd IPCC report, said. Rajendra Pauchari, the UN panel's chairman, summed up: "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."

Background

The 4^th IPCC report integrates the most significant findings of three exhaustive reports released from January through April 2007. The first covered climate trends, the second the world's ability to adapt to a warming planet, and the third, strategies to tackle global warming.