IPCC Mitigation Report due out Tomorrow

[Tom Adams]

I wonder if anyone has any comments on this effort? It is suppose to
set the tone for mitigation efforts.

I notice in the press that China is wanting the Developed World to
take responsibility for the CO2 that they have already put in the
atmosphere and not just concentrate on future emmissions. Also China
is carping about the target CO2 concentration (at least about the low
end of the range) and about the cost estimates being too low.

I am pretty sure that a unified effort by all the nations with the
bulk of the emissions will be needed to keep the CO2 concentration to
a limit like 650 or below.

[Jim Torson]

From the blog of Joe Romm, author of Hell and High Water:

http://climateprogress.org/2007/05/03/ipcc-out-of-date-again/

IPCC Out of Date, Again

Already, there are serious reservations about the final IPCC summary for policymakers to be released Friday (May 4th).

The BBC leads the charge, noting that the economic models used to recommend mitigation policies aim to hold the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration at 550 parts per million (ppm). However, more recent scientific evidence suggests, and ClimateProgress agrees, that our policies need to keep concentrations much closer to 450 ppm.

We certainly applaud the IPCC and its work, but the reality of the process is that every month devoted to writing and editing is a month that doesn’t account for the most current data. By the time of publication, the final product has, spiraled out of date by two years.

This isn’t the first time. The story should be familiar if you recall the release of the first IPCC report in February, whose potential sea level rise estimate excluded accerated melting on the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

And, of course, every government ­ including ours, China’s and Saudi Arabia’s ­ must agree on every word, making it all too easy to water down previously strong conclusions. We need a better process if we are going to solve the climate problem.