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Emissions Growth Must End in 7 Years, U.N. Warns
Doug Struck, Washington Post
Report Lays Out Stark Choices to Avoid the Deaths of Species
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The world will have to end its growth of carbon emissions within seven years and become mostly free of carbon-emitting technologies in about four decades to avoid killing as many as a quarter of the planet’s species from global warming, according to top United Nations’ scientists.
The stark choices laid out yesterday by the agency’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describe the daunting task if the world is to avoid the consequences of a planet heated up by more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) since 2000.
The panel, which distilled research from about 2,500 scientists, avoided moral conclusions about how much global warming is too much.
(18 November 2007)
U.N. Report Describes Risks of Inaction on Climate Change
Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times
In its final and most powerful report, a United Nations panel of scientists meeting here describes the mounting risks of climate change in language that is both more specific and forceful than its previous assessments, according to scientists here.
Synthesizing reams of data from its three previous reports, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the first time specifically points out important risks if governments fail to respond: melting ice sheets that could lead to a rapid rise in sea levels and the extinction of large numbers of species brought about by even moderate amounts of warming, on the order of 1 to 3 degrees.
The report carries heightened significance because it is the last word from the influential global climate panel before world leaders meet in Bali, Indonesia, next month to begin to discuss a global climate change treaty that will replace the Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012. It is also the first report from the panel since it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October – an honor that many scientists here said emboldened them to stand more forcefully behind their positions.
(16 November 2007)
A Last Warning on Global Warming
Bryan Walsh, TIME Magazine
The language of science, like that of the United Nations, is by nature cautious and measured. That makes the dire tone of the just-released final report from the fourth assessment of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a network of thousands of international scientists, all the more striking. Global warming is “unequivocal.” Climate change will bring “abrupt and irreversible changes.” The report, a synthesis for politicians culled from three other IPCC panels convened throughout the year, read like what it is: a final warning to humanity. “Today the world’s scientists have spoken clearly, and with one voice,” said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, who attended the publication of the report in Valencia, Spain. Climate change “is the defining challenge of our age.”
…As if the potential consequences of climate change weren’t scary enough, the IPCC emphasized just how little time we have left to try to change the future. The panel reported that the world would have to reverse the rapid growth of greenhouse gases by 2015 to avert the worst consequences. The clock was running. “What we will do in the next two, three years will determine our future,” said Pachauri. “This is the defining challenge.”
(17 November 2007)
U.N. Chief Seeks More Climate Change Leadership
Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, describing climate change as “the defining challenge of our age,” released the final report of a United Nations panel on climate change here on Saturday and called on the United States and China to play “a more constructive role.”
His challenge to the world’s two greatest greenhouse gas emitters came just two weeks before the world’s energy ministers meet in Bali, Indonesia, to begin talks on creating a global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
The United States and China are signatories to Kyoto, but Washington has not ratified the treaty, and China, along with other developing countries, is not bound by its mandatory emissions caps.
“Today the world’s scientists have spoken, clearly and in one voice,” Mr. Ban said of the report, the Synthesis Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “In Bali, I expect the world’s policymakers to do the same.”
(17 November 2007)
UN scientists urge carbon tax to fight global warming
David Adam, The Guardian
All sources of carbon pollution – from flights to inefficient light bulbs – must become more expensive if the world is to tackle global warming, an influential panel of scientists and government officials will say today.
Putting a price on harmful emissions from goods and services would require a fundamental shift in the world’s economy, but “could realise significant mitigation potential in all sectors” according to a report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The report will be launched today in Valencia by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, and marks the start of an international effort to agree a worldwide treaty to regulate greenhouse gas output.
The IPCC, which won this year’s Nobel peace prize jointly with Al Gore, will confirm it is 90% sure that recent global warming is down to human activity, and warn that the impact of future temperature rise will be severe.
(17 November 2007)
UN issues dire report on climate; effects on Swiss
Swissinfo
The United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has called for “urgent, global action” to meet the challenge of climate change.
His statement followed the publication on Saturday of the fourth and final report this year of the UN scientific panel which declared that climate systems have already begun to change.
…Western Europe will not be among the hardest hit regions, but countries like Switzerland will also feel the impact of global warming.
In its own report issued earlier this year, the Swiss government-appointed Advisory Body on Climate Change (OcCC) warned that the Swiss would have to make adaptations.
The findings and recommendations in the work titled, “Switzerland in 2050”, were based on an expected temperature rise of two degrees Celsius in autumn, winter and spring, and three degrees in summer, compared with 1990.
The report says Switzerland can expect more frequent extreme weather patterns, resulting in floods and mudslides in winter and spring, and summer heatwaves.
It predicted that output of mountain hydroelectricity plants (60 per cent of total domestic power generation) could decrease by around seven per cent, since they will have to rely more on rainwater and less on melted snow.
However, available water resources will dwindle affecting nuclear power plants (38 per cent of total domestic power generation), which rely on river water to cool the reactors.
Heatwaves and higher ozone concentrations will take a toll on people’s health, with more heat-related illnesses and deaths, and the spread of tropical diseases.
And Swiss farmers will have to deal with the spread of weeds, pests and extreme weather conditions.
(17 November 2007)
