UN experts warn of climate change impacts

2298, 11/04/07

The effects of human-induced climate change pose an increasing threat to the natural world and human society, the UN's intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) said in a new report adopted in Brussels last Friday.

The report is the second part of a trilogy forming the panel's first full assessment of climate change since 2001. The opening part established the human influence on climate change as "unequivocal" (EED 02/02/07 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/22541).

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon urged the world to take "adequate, large-scale adaptation measures without delay". European commissioner Stavros Dimas said he would set out a blueprint for the EU's adaptation response before the summer (EED 10/01/07 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/22373).

German minister and EU environment council president Sigmar Gabriel said the findings should accelerate efforts to agree an international post-2012 climate regime. "The earlier and more decisively we take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the less severe the consequences will be".

The IPCC's latest study describes how climate change is affecting people and the environment. It predicts future impacts,by region and sector, and estimates how far mitigation and adaptation measures can help reduce them.

It paints a bleak future picture, forecasting growing water shortages and crop failures, the spread of disease, and widespread extinctions. The world's poorest will suffer most, it concludes (see separate article, this issue, for more detail).

The study was approved by over 100 UN member states only after prolonged discussions between government officials and scientists that ran deep into Thursday night.

China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and the US led objections to several passages in the original document, according to news reports. In one case China wanted to reduce the level of certainty in language expressing the consequences of regional temperature increases.

The report's lead scientific authors said this questioning of their work was "unprecedented". MEP Karl-Heinz Florenz, a former chairman of the European parliament's environment committee, accused government officials of "falsifying reality" and "trying to use political influence to talk down scientific fact".

Delegates strengthened other parts of the text, for example adding a warning that some African nations might have to spend 5 to 10 per cent of their GDP on adapting to climate change.

Follow-up: IPCC http://www.ipcc.ch/, tel: +41 22 730 8208, and summary for policymakers http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM6avr07.pdf.

See also Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) summary http://www.iisd.ca/download/pdf/enb12320e.pdf and UN press release

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=22153&Cr=Climate&Cr1=,

plus reactions from the European commission http://www.endseuropedaily.com/docs/70411a.doc,

Sigmar Gabriel http://www.bmu.de/pressemitteilungen/pressemitteilungen_ab_22112005/pm/39117.php

(in German), MEP Karl-Heinz Florenz http://www.karl-heinz-florenz.de/cms/0.391.0.0.1.0.phtml,

WWF http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/climate_change/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=98700,

Greenpeace http://www.greenpeace.eu/issues/news.html#070406_a,

FOE Europe http://www.foeeurope.org/press/2007/April6_CP_IPCC_WGII.htm,

and UK environment ministry http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2007/070406a.htm.

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