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United Nations Climate Panel Issues Strongest Warnings Yet


The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize – released its Draft Summary Synthesis Report on the impacts of climate change on November 17, 2007.

The Synthesis Report, intended to guide governments on climate policy, includes key conclusions from three working group reports that were previously released.

Greenpeace International has prepared a backgrounder on the Synthesis Report which is available here.

Some findings of the Synthesis Report Summary and three working group reports

• Summary for Policymakers of the Synthesis Report of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (Draft)
  
  Globally, annual production of human-generated greenhouse gases has increased 70 percent since 1970. The IPCC concluded that reductions in greenhouse gases must start immediately to prevent or mitigate far reaching global impacts of climate change. Projected impacts include yields from rain-fed agriculture reduced by up to 50% in some African countries by 2020 and decreases in fresh water availability in different parts of the world leading up to 2050.
  
  To keep global temperatures increases to the minimum of 2 to 2.4° C, continued growth in human-generated greenhouse gas emissions must end no later than 2015 and begin to sharply decline thereafter.
  
  
• Working Group Report, Part 1
  (The Physical Science Basis)
  
  Rates the probability that human activities are the main cause of climate change at 90 percent, a dramatic increase from the same panel’s finding of a 66 percent probability in 2001.
  
  
• Working Group Report, Part 2
  (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability)
  
  Examines the impacts of climate change and points out that the populations most affected (yet least responsible for increasing levels of greenhouse gas emissions) will be the world's poor.
  
  
• Working Group Report, Part 3
  (Mitigation of Climate Change)
  
  Examines the financial costs of limiting long-term climate change and finds that the expense of stabilizing greenhouse gases, to limit global warming to between 2°C and 4°C, are “negligible”. Cost estimates are between 0.2% and 3.0% of global GDP by 2030. (The cost of not taking action, as noted in the UK Stern report and elsewhere, is far higher.)