Bleakest Climate Report Approved
Pastor Dale Morgan
Apr 6, 7:43 PM EDT
*Bleakest Climate Report Approved*
By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- As the world gets hotter by degrees, millions
of poor people will suffer from hunger, thirst, floods and disease
unless drastic action is taken, scientists and diplomats warned Friday
in their bleakest report ever on global warming.
All regions of the world will change, with the risk that nearly a third
of the Earth's species will vanish if global temperatures rise just 3.6
degrees above the average temperature in the 1980s-90s, the new climate
report says. Areas that now have too little rain will become drier.
Yet that grim and still preventable future is a toned-down prediction, a
compromise brokered in a fierce, around-the-clock debate among
scientists and bureaucrats. Officials from some governments, including
China and Saudi Arabia, managed to win some weakened wording.
Even so, the final report "will send a very, very clear signal" to
governments, said Yvo de Boer, the top climate official for the United
Nations, which in 1988 created the authoritative climate change panel
that issued the starkly worded document.
And while some scientists were angered at losing some ground, many
praised the report as the strongest warning ever that nations must cut
back on greenhouse gas emissions.
The report is the second of four coming this year from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations network of
2,000 scientists. The new document tries to explain how global warming
is changing life on Earth; the panel's report in February focused on the
cause of global warming and said scientists are highly confident most of
it is due to human activity.
All four reports must be unanimously approved by the 120-plus
governments that participate, and all changes must be approved by the
scientists.
That edict made for a deadline-busting contentious final editing session
that was closed to the public. However, The Associated Press witnessed
the hectic final 3 1/2 hours of objections and conflict.
At one point, Chinese and Saudi Arabian delegates tried to reduce the
scientific confidence level about already noticeable effects of global
warming. They lower the confidence level from 90 percent to 80 percent.
Scientists objected, and one lead author from the United States, NASA's
Cynthia Rosenzweig, left the building after filing an official protest.
"There is a discernible human influence on these changes" that are
already occurring through flooding, heat waves, hurricanes and threats
to species, she said.
Under a U.S.-proposed compromise, the final report deleted any mention
of the level of confidence about global warming's current effects. And
that may have saved the day, according to some scientists who said the
report had appeared doomed over that issue.
There were other disputes where scientists lost out:
-Instead of saying "hundreds of millions" would be vulnerable to
flooding under certain scenarios, the final document says "many millions."
-Instead of suggesting up to 120 million people are at risk of hunger
because of global warming, the revised report refers to negative effects
on subsidence farmers and fishers.
Often it was the U.S. delegation who stood with scientists and helped
reach compromise, said Stanford University scientist Stephen Schneider,
a frequent critic of the Bush administration's global warming policies.
British scientist Neil Adger said he and others were disappointed that
government officials deleted parts of a chart that highlights the
devastating effects of climate change with every rise of 1.8 degrees in
temperature.
Some scientists bitterly vowed never to take part in the process again.
Still, Adger and other scientists and even environmental groups hailed
the final report as the strongest ever.
"This is a glimpse into an apocalyptic future," the Greenpeace
environmental group said of the final report.
The tone of the report is urgent, noting those who can afford the least
get hit the most by global warming.
"Don't be poor in a hot country, don't live in hurricane alley, watch
out about being on the coasts or in the Arctic, and it's a bad idea to
be on high mountains with glaciers melting," said Schneider, the
Stanford scientist who was one of the study author's.
Africa by 2020 is looking at an additional 75 million to 250 million
people going thirsty because of climate change, the report said. Deadly
diarrheal diseases associated with floods and droughts will increase in
Asia because of global warming, the report said.
The first few degrees increase in global temperature will actually raise
global food supply, but then it will plummet, according to the report.
"The poorest of the poor in the world - and this includes poor people in
prosperous societies - are going to be the worst hit," said Rajendra
Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
"People who are poor are least able to adapt to climate change."
But even rich countries, such as the United States say that the report
tells them what to watch for.
James Connaughton, the head of the White House Council on Environmental
Quality noted that food production in North America would rise
initially, but so will increased coastal flooding.
The head of the U.S. delegation, White House associate science adviser
Sharon Hays, said a key message she's taking home to Washington is "that
these projected impacts are expected to get more pronounced at higher
temperatures," she said in a conference call from Brussels. "Not all
projected impacts are negative."
Schneider said a main message isn't just what will happen, but what
already has started: melting glaciers, stronger hurricanes, deadlier
heat waves, and disappearing or moving species.
It all can be traced directly to greenhouse gases from the burning of
fossil fuels, according to the report.
Martin Parry, who conducted the tough closed-door negotiations, said
that with 29,000 sets of data from every continent include Antarctica,
the report firmly and finally established "a man-made climate signal
coming through on plants, water and ice."
"For the first time, we are not just arm-waving with models," he said.
But many of the worst effects aren't locked into the future, the report
said in its final pages. People can build better structures, adapt to
future warming threats and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, scientists said.
"There are things that can be done now, but it's much better if it can
be done now rather than later," said David Karoly of the University of
Oklahoma, one of the report authors.
"We can fix this," Schneider said.
---
On the Net:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: http://www.ipcc.ch/
The summary of the report: http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM6avr07.pdf
---
AP Correspondent Arthur Max contributed to this report.