U.N. experts near accord on bleak climate warning
Pastor Dale Morgan
Friday April 6, 9:33 AM Reuters
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U.N. experts near accord on bleak climate warning*
By Jeff Mason
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Climate experts neared agreement on Friday on the
bleakest U.N. warning yet about the impacts of global warming, but some
participants said parts were getting watered down from a harder-hitting
draft.
Scientists working with government delegates from more than 100 nations
on the U.N. climate panel were locked in overnight talks in Brussels,
seeking to overcome differences about a 21-page summary due for
publication at 0800 GMT.
The report predicts more hunger in Africa and Asia and water shortages
that could affect up to 3 billion people, extinctions of species and a
rise in ocean levels that could go on for centuries.
"It's very frustrating," one participant, who declined to be named, said
of the toning down of the draft written by scientists.
The final review is made by both scientists and government delegates in
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC).
The talks, which began on Monday, are to approve a report warning
climate change could lead to lower crop yields in Africa, a thaw of
Himalayan glaciers and a rise in ocean levels that could last for
hundreds of years.
The IPCC toned down risks of extinctions among other issues.
"Approximately 20-30 percent of plant and animal species assessed so far
are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global
average temperature exceed 1.5-2.5 degrees Celsius (2.7-4.5
Fahrenheit)," a text said.
A previous draft had said 20-30 percent of all species would be at "high
risk" of extinction with those temperature rises.
FIGHT
One participant said the United States, China and Saudi Arabia opposed
mention of a 2006 study by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas
Stern that said it would be cheaper to fight climate change now than
suffer consequences of inaction.
The European Commission, Britain and Austria favoured including a
reference to the Stern review.
Even so, the IPCC report will say climate change, blamed mainly on human
emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, is no longer a
vague, distant threat.
"The whole of climate change is something actually here and now rather
than something for the future," said Neil Adger, a British lead author
of the report.
The report will set the tone for policy making in coming years,
including the effort to extend the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.
Kyoto binds 35 rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions but has been
undercut by a 2001 pullout by the United States, the top emitting nation.
U.S. President George W. Bush says Kyoto would cost U.S. jobs and
wrongly excludes developing nations such as China.
Friday's report will be the second by the IPCC this year. In February,
the first said it was more than 90 percent probable that mankind was to
blame for most global warming since 1950.
The report makes clear developing nations are likely to suffer most even
though they have done little to burn fossil fuels since the Industrial
Revolution.
Temperate countries nearer the poles, such as Canada, Russia or Nordic
nations, may benefit for a while from factors including higher crop growth.
For Africa "reductions in the area suitable for agriculture, and in
length of growing seasons and yield potential, are likely to lead to
increased risk of hunger", the draft said.