Draft of climate report maps out 'highway to extinction'*

POSTED: 0814 GMT (1614 HKT), April 1, 2007

Story Highlights
• Climate change report due Friday in Belgium charts effects by degree
• Minimal heat rise means more food production in northern regions
• Scientist: "Worst stuff is not going to happen because we can't be
that stupid"
• Report will be second in a U.N.-guided, four-volume review, updating
2001 version

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A key element of the second major report on climate
change being released Friday in Belgium is a chart that maps out the
effects of global warming, most of them bad, with every degree of
temperature rise.

There's one bright spot: A minimal heat rise means more food production
in northern regions of the world.

However, the number of species going extinct rises with the heat, as
does the number of people who may starve, or face water shortages, or
floods, according to the projections in the draft report obtained by The
Associated Press

Some scientists are calling this degree-by-degree projection a "highway
to extinction."

It's likely to be the source of sharp closed-door debate, some
scientists say, along with a multitude of other issues in the 20-chapter
draft report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. While
the wording in the draft is almost guaranteed to change at this week's
meeting in Brussels, several scientists say the focus won't.

The final document will be the product of a United Nations network of
2,000 scientists as authors and reviewers, along with representatives of
more than 120 governments as last-minute editors. It will be the second
volume of a four-volume authoritative assessment of Earth's climate
being released this year. The last such effort was in 2001. (Volume 1:
Humans 'very likely' cause warming)

Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist with the University of Victoria in
British Columbia, said the chart of results from various temperature
levels is "a highway to extinction, but on this highway there are many
turnoffs. This is showing you where the road is heading. The road is
heading toward extinction."

Weaver is one of the lead authors of the first report, issued in February.

While humanity will survive, hundreds of millions, maybe billions of
people may not, according to the chart -- if the worst scenarios happen.

The report says global warming has already degraded conditions for many
species, coastal areas and poor people. With a more than 90 percent
level of confidence, the scientists in the draft report say man-made
global warming "over the last three decades has had a discernible
influence on many physical and biological systems."

But as the world's average temperature warms from 1990 levels, the
projections get more dire. Add 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit -- 1 degree
Celsius is the calculation scientists use -- and between 400 million and
1.7 billion extra people can't get enough water, some infectious
diseases and allergenic pollens rise, and some amphibians go extinct.

But the world's food supply, especially in northern areas, could
increase. That's the likely outcome around 2020, according to the draft.

Add another 1.8 degrees and as many as 2 billion people could be without
water and about 20 percent to 30 percent of the world's species near
extinction. Also, more people start dying because of malnutrition,
disease, heat waves, floods and droughts -- all caused by global
warming. That would happen around 2050, depending on the level of
greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels.

At the extreme end of the projections, a 7- to 9-degree average
temperature increase, the chart predicts: "Up to one-fifth of the world
population affected by increased flood events" ... "1.1 to 3.2 billion
people with increased water scarcity" ..."major extinctions around the
globe."

Despite that dire outlook, several scientists involved in the process
say they are optimistic that such a drastic temperature rise won't
happen because people will reduce carbon dioxide emissions that cause
global warming.

"The worst stuff is not going to happen because we can't be that
stupid," said Harvard University oceanographer James McCarthy, who was a
top author of the 2001 version of this report. "Not that I think the
projections aren't that good, but because we can't be that stupid."