IPCC Final Report: Urgent Global Action Required to Limit Effects of Global Warming/Climate Change (UK)

Nov 19th 2007
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IPCC Final Report: Urgent Global Action Required to Limit Effects of Global Warming/Climate Change (UK)

Photo courtesy of South Bay Mobilization site

/GNN – PRNewswire/ — The world must face up to the challenge set by an international panel of scientists to act urgently to reduce GreenHouse Gas (GHG) emissions, or deal with serious consequences, UK Environment Minister Phil Woolas said.

Mr Woolas said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had produced the most comprehensive and authoritative work to date on the state of global climate change, and its message to governments around the world was stark.

The IPCC, which was last month awarded the Nobel Prize for increasing global knowledge about man-made climate change and laying the foundations to fight it, released its Synthesis Report (SYR), which is the fourth and final volume of the IPCC Assessment Report Climate Change 2007. It has been prepared for policymakers, and represents the final step in the integration and presentation of the comprehensive scientific information contained in the three IPCC reports released earlier this year. The SYR is composed of the following six topics, which is in addition to the Summary for Policy Makers: 1) Observed changes and effect; 2) Causes of changes; 3) Climate change and its impacts in the near and long term under different scenarios; 4) Adaptation and mitigation options and responses, and the inter-relationship with sustainable development; 5) Long-term perspective; and 6) Robust findings and key uncertainties.

The fourth Assessment Report (AR4) is the result of six years work by more than 1200 lead and contributing author scientists from more than 130 countries. It assesses the current scientific understanding of climate change, its impacts and how best to respond. The work is reviewed by an additional 2500 scientific experts.

The report states that urgent action must be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or climate change will intensify and have a dramatic effect on the natural world and human society.

The three previous IPCC reports examined the themes of science, impacts and adaptation, and mitigation.

For all four reports, please visit their website: http://www.ipcc.ch.

Mr Woolas said, “No government can ignore the IPCC’s work on the of the risks of climate change. It’s a clear call to action that when we meet in Bali next month, we must launch formal negotiations on an international climate agreement that will include every major country on earth.

“The agreement this week in the United States by the Midwest Governors’ Association to cut emissions and introduce carbon trading has also given a tremendous boost going into the Bali talks.

“We must not squander the political will and momentum that the IPCC’s work has generated this year. Instead, we must take this chance to start serious work on a new UN climate framework that can be agreed by the end of 2009.”

The SYR is a product of intense week long discussions in Valencia, Spain, and provides a definitive conclusion to the climate change debate. It provides in one concise document the complete view of the climate change issue, based on the three IPCC Climate Change 2007 assessment reports published earlier this year. It draws on the knowledge of more than 1200 experts from all over the world.

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon attended the unveiling of the fourth IPCC report in Valencia,Spain. The document is seen as a landmark reference paper for governments trying to tackle global warming and a key text that will be available to the delegates as they head for Bali to negotiate the development of a future regime to curb climate change beyond 2012.

Background:

The six years since the last IPCC’s Third Assessment Report have seen significant progress in understanding past and recent climate change and in projecting future changes. These advances have built on significant increases in new data, more sophisticated analyses, and on improvements in the understanding and simulation of physical processes in climate models. The increased confidence in climate science provided by these developments is evident in this IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report.

Although the SYR does not provide new results from the Working Group reports released earlier this year, it does provide new insights and an integrated view of the key issues.

The SYR’s key points are listed as follows:

***Warming of the climate system is unequivocal and the role of human activities in the observed changes is now clearer than ever and much greater than any natural factors;

***In the absence of effective international agreement and further efforts to reduce emissions, GHG concentrations will continue to grow rapidly over the coming decades resulting in an increase of temperature of between 1.7 C and 4.0 C by 2100;

***Some risks are projected to be larger or likely to occur at lower increases in temperature than in the previous IPCC report;

***As warming proceeds, other climate changes and rising sea levels will adversely affect food and water resources, human health, infrastructure, and biodiversity and economies throughout the world;

***Climate change will increasingly threaten vulnerable systems, and increase the risk of abrupt or irreversible climate change, such as ice sheet melt and sea-level rise;

***A portfolio of adaptation and mitigation measures can reduce the overall risks associated with climate change. While adaptation is the only means to respond to the impacts in the near term, there are limits to what adaptation can achieve in the long term if GHG are not curtailed. Mitigation is the only way to curb global climate change in the long term;

***In order to limit the adverse impact of climate change, including risks to vulnerable ecosystems and populations, global emissions need to peak soon and decline rapidly.

***It is economically and technically feasible to make significant reductions in emissions and the extent of mitigation efforts over the next two decades will largely determine how far risks are reduced, avoided, or delayed; and

***Postponing action to cut GHG will increase the costs of damage to the environment and will increase the effort needed to mitigate the effects of them.

(Ed.: With this report, I hope that those naysayers, conservatives, and political minded, would end their contesting the fact that enormous changes in how we approach our energy needs must be made immediately to limit the effects of Global Warming/Climate Change that will be experienced by our planet.

Remember: if the planet is allowed to go past the environmental recovery tipping point, there won’t be any do-overs.)

About the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:

The IPCC was set up in 1988 to assess the scientific and technical aspects of climate change. The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President of the United States, Al Gore. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said the award was ‘for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.’ The award was announced on 12 October 2007 and will be presented to the winners in Oslo, Norway, on 10 December 2007.

For information about the Nobel Peace Prize Awards, please visit their webpage: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/press.html .

The IPCC is sponsored by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Since its establishment, the IPCC has produced a series of publications, which have become standard works of reference. The reports and technical summaries are prepared wholly by the scientists from all regions of the world.

For more information, please visit their website: http://www.ipcc.ch.

The IPCC does not carry out research. It bases its assessment mainly on peer reviewed and published scientific/technical literature.

The UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) supports UK lead authors and review editors to enable them to participate in IPCC writing groups

DEFRA’s aim is sustainable development

Source: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Website and webpage: http://www.ipcc.ch
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/press.html