U.N. sees 'far more robust' global warming evidence
Pastor Dale Morgan
U.N. sees 'far more robust' global warming evidence*
29 Oct 2006 10:41:48 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Laura MacInnis
GENEVA, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Scientific evidence that human activity is
heating the Earth has become "far more robust" in the last five years,
the head of the United Nations climate change panel said.
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), said an increase of research on global warming had added
weight to the group's upcoming report, which is considered a mainstay
for environmental policy-making.
"Some of the uncertainties that we had in the scientific evidence will
be reduced. Our evidence will be far more robust," Pachauri told Reuters
in a telephone interview.
In its last assessment in 2001, the IPCC said there was "new and
stronger evidence" that gases linked to human activities, mainly from
burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars, were the main
cause of global warming.
Its next report, the first chapter of which will be launched in Paris on
Feb. 2, will group research by about 2,000 scientists on the drivers of
climate change and its impacts on weather, disease, ecology and water
supply.
Marked strengthening in the IPCC conclusions might pressure the United
States -- which pulled out of the emissions-cutting U.N. Kyoto Protocol
in 2001 -- to toughen its policies.
President George W. Bush aims to brake the growth of emissions, which
were at about 16 percent above 1990 levels in 2004. The White House says
it will seek to halt or reverse the rise "as the science justifies".
James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental
Quality, said he did not expect the new IPCC report to make a big splash.
Half the findings come from U.S.-funded science programmes and have been
factored into policy-making, Connaughton told Reuters during a
U.S.-European Union meeting in Helsinki.
Still, Pachauri said the report could add momentum to what he called
"very encouraging" policy shifts in California and other states, and
amongst the U.S. corporate community.
Public interest in climate change rose after Hurricane Katrina
devastated New Orleans last year, and after the release of Hollywood
films such as "The Day After Tomorrow" and Al Gore's "An Inconvenient
Truth".
"There is an unprecedented level of awareness of climate change and
interest in the subject, and when the report comes out I expect there to
be a lot of attention paid to it," Pachauri said. "Presumably that will
impact the political behaviour of people across the world." (Additional
reporting by Alister Doyle in Helsinki)