Key report to say global warming already happening

energy

There is evidence that the world is already feeling the effects of climate change and has been for the past decade. This is what hundreds of UN-backed scientists and politicians will say on Friday 6 April, a source involved in last-minute discussions taking place in Brussels, Belgium, told New Scientist.
The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the first to be based on observations of recent changes in weather, rather than computer-model-based forecasts of future climate.
Experts have long held that blaming human greenhouse-gas emissions for any single weather is difficult, or even impossible. The closest researchers can come to doing this is calculating the probability that an event – a hurricane, for instance, or a heat wave – would have happened if industrial activities had not been pumping the gases into the atmosphere since the late 1800s.
One such retrospective analysis, published in December 2004 (Nature, vol 432, p 551) demonstrated that human greenhouse gas emissions had at least doubled the risk of a severe heat wave in Europe during the summer of 2003 (see Companies could be sued for climate change). The heat wave in question had led to the deaths of about 14,000 people.
Delta blues
The upcoming IPCC report, the source told New Scientist, will argue that the accumulation of extreme heat waves, droughts, floods, storms and melting glaciers from all over the world provide a strong case for climate change happening now.
The particular vulnerability of Africa and populations in large river deltas are also expected to be highlighted in the report. River deltas often house dense human developments and are vulnerable to rises and sea-levels and extreme storms. This is especially true in developing countries like Vietnam, but also in large industrialised cities, like London, UK (see Coastal living – a growing global threat).
African nations are heavily reliant on agriculture which in the long term will suffer from rising temperatures and decreasing rainfall.
Lashing out
Late-stage discussions over the final wording of the IPCC report started with a bang on Monday 2 April, when the European environment commissioner lashed out at US and Australian climate policies. "We expect the United States to cooperate closer and not to continue having a negative attitude in international negotiations," Stavros Dimas said.
He also accused Australia of undermining efforts to reach an international agreement of limiting greenhouse gas emissions by refusing to ratify the Kyoto protocol.
"It's only political pride, if I can put it in a nice way, that prevents you from ratifying," he said to Australian delegates. "If you would like to really give a boost to international negotiations, you could ratify Kyoto."
Accusations fly
Australian prime minister John Howard responded on national radio: "Our answer to the spokesman for the European Union is look to your own affairs, get your countries complying with the targets you've proclaimed. The spokesman for a group of countries [is] lecturing us about not having signed Kyoto, yet the great bulk of the countries on whose behalf he speaks are falling well behind their Kyoto targets and are doing less well than Australia in meeting them," he said.
The new IPCC publication will be the second chapter of the panel's 2007 report on climate change. It will focus on the global and regional impacts of rising temperatures, and the importance of preparing for these impacts – which are likely to include dwindling water reserves as mountain glaciers melt, and more intense storms.
The first chapter of the IPCC report was launched in February 2007. Its main statement was to say with 90% certainty that the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities are driving climate change (see Blame for global warming placed firmly on humankind).
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