IPCC panel of "experts" to be audited

It will be very interesting to read the results of the IPCC review by none other than Economist Harold Shapiro who is a youthful 74 years of age.

I have often wondered how the IPCC was set up given the inclusion of a rather motley crue of academics.

Clearly there were too few economists (hint hint to Harold).

Former Princeton Head To Review U.N. Climate Panel [PlanetArk]

A former president of Princeton University will lead a review of the U.N. panel of climate scientists after errors in a 2007 report used as a guide for fighting global warming, science academies said on Monday.

Economist Harold Shapiro, 74, will chair the 12-member committee that is due to report by August 30 on the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

"We approach this review with an open mind," Shapiro said in a statement of the committee appointed by the Amsterdam-based InterAcademy Council (IAC), which groups national science academies.

Canadian-born Shapiro is a former president both of Princeton and the University of Michigan. Other committee members include Mario Molina, a Nobel Chemistry Prize winner and Maureen Cropper, a former lead economist at the World Bank.

In January, the IPCC acknowledged that its latest report in 2007 exaggerated the pace of melt of Himalayan glaciers by saying they might all disappear by 2035. In February, it said it also over-stated how much of the Netherlands was below sea level.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced the review in March after controversy around the IPCC mistakes eroded trust. People who doubt human activities are warming the planet say the reports are biased to exclude alternative views.

Ban has reaffirmed key IPCC conclusions that it is at least 90 percent certain that human activities are the main cause of climate change in recent decades that is set to bring more heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels.

The review committee will have its first meeting in Amsterdam on May 14-15. Roseanne Diab, executive officer of the Academy of Science of South Africa, will serve as vice chair. Other members will be from countries including China, India, Brazil, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands and Malaysia.

Issues to be reviewed include "data quality assurance and control; the type of literature that may be cited in IPCC reports; expert and government review of IPCC materials; handling of the full range of scientific views; and the correction of errors," it said.

The committee would also review "other processes, including management functions and communication strategies."

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Climate Change Economics - see for yourself

Here is a neat little tool that can show the effects of various assumptions on the economic impact of climate change on the average American.

All students (and indeed academics) should have a play. The Porter (innovation) Hypothesis is hidden in there somewhere.

See for yourself

H/T: Common Tragedies

Today, Yale’s School of Forestry & Environmental Studies posted a new website developed by economics professor Robert Repetto. In a way that anybody can easily understand, it synthesizes the results of thousands of policy simulations from 25 economic models being used to predict the economic impacts of reducing U.S. carbon emissions. To try this new website, just click on http://www.climate.yale.edu/seeforyourself. This website identifies the seven key assumptions accounting for most of the differences in the models’ predictions. It shows that even under the most unfavorable assumptions regarding costs, the U.S. economy is predicted to continue growing robustly as carbon emissions are reduced. Under more favorable assumptions, the economy would even grow more rapidly if emissions are reduced than if they are allowed to continue to increase as in the past. Even better, this new website allows site visitors to decide how likely they think each of the seven key assumptions are, and on that basis see for themselves what economic impacts all the leading economic models would predict, if carbon emissions are reduced by specific percentages over the next two decades. If you visit this site, you can make your own assumptions about the key factors that will influence the costs of stopping climate change and see the results.

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IPCC member articles for free from Elsevier

From the inbox:

Click the links for the free access (too lazy to add the live links here).

-------------------------

We are also proud to announce that many Elsevier Editors and Editorial Board members have served significant roles as authors and reviewers for the 2007 and three previous IPCC reports conducted since 1990. Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the IPCC, is an Editorial Board Member of Energy Policy and an Associate Editor for the Encylopedia of Energy. View Dr. Pachauri's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech.

In recognition of the importance of the work of the IPCC, we are pleased to offer free access to selected articles on climate change written by members of the IPCC and published by Elsevier:

IPCC articles.

Articles regarding the IPCC


IPCC Warns of Dire Climate Change Consequences The New Scientist Volume 196, Issue 2631, 24 November 2007, Page 13 Fred Pierce

Working Group 1 Report of the IPCC Fourth Assessment - An Editorial Global Environmental Change, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 27 September 2007
Will Steffen

The Changing Role of Nation States in International Environmental Assessments - The Case of the IPCC Global Environmental Change, Volume 13, Issue 2, July 2003
Bernd Siebenhüner

Articles by members of the IPC

Improving Information for Managing an Uncertain Future Climate Global Environmental Change, Volume 17, Issue 1, February 2007 Richard H. Moss

Climate and Humanity Global Environmental Change Part A, Volume 14, Issue 2, July 2004 R.K. Pachauri

Effects of Climate Change on Global Food Production Under SRES Emissions and Socio-Economic Scenarios Global Environmental Change, Volume 14, Issue 1, April 2004
M.L. Parry, C. Rosenzweig, A. Iglesias, M. Livermore and G. Fischer

Linkages Between Climate Change and Sustainable Development Climate Policy, Volume 2, Issues 2-3, September 2002 Rovere, Jyoti K. Parikh, Kirit Parikh and A. Atiq Rahman

Millions at Risk: Defining Critical Climate Change Threats and Targets Global Environmental Change, Volume 11, Issue 3, October 2001 Martin Parry, Nigel Arnell, Tony McMichael, Robert Nicholls, Pim Martens, Sari Kovats, Matthew Livermore, Cynthia Rosenzweig, Ana Iglesias and Gunther Fischer

Climate Change and World Food Security: A New Assessment Global Environmental Change, Volume 9, Supplement 1, October 1999 Martin Parry, Cynthia Rosenzweig, Ana Iglesias, Günther Fischer and Matthew Livermore

Role of Energy Production in the Control of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Waste Management Energy Conversion and Management, Volume 37, Issues 6-8, June-August 1996
R. Pipatti and I. Savolainen

Global Net Primary Production: Combining Ecology and Remote Sensing Remote Sensing of Environment, Volume 51, Issue 1, January 1995 Christopher B. Field, James T. Randerson and Carolyn M. Malmström

Making Economic Growth More Sustainable Ecological Economics, Volume 15, Issue 2, November 1995 Mohan Munasinghe

The Climate Convention and the Latest Scientific Understanding of Climate Change
Renewable Energy, Volume 5, Issues 1-4, August 1994 Sir John Houghton

Environmental Issues and Economic Decisions in Developing Countries World Development, Volume 21, Issue 11, November 1993 Mohan Munasinghe

Greenpeace Bali blog

From the inbox:

For those interested in keeping abreast of events in Bali the Greenpeace blog will provide the NGO perspective.

http://weblog.greenpeace.org/climate/


Latest documents and reports from Greenpeace HERE.

PDFs are available for the following reports:

Tropical Deforestation Emission Reduction Mechanism - A Discussion Paper

Tropical deforestation and the Kyoto Protocol

Greenpeace briefing: Kyoto and the Bali Mandate: what the world needs to do to combat climate change

How the palm oil industry is Cooking the Climate

What is the IPCC

Greenpeace Briefing: China - taking action on climate change

ChinaDialogue also have an interesting piece called "Why does Bali matter?" by Tan Copsey for anyone still needing a little revision on this topic.

Why does Bali matter?

Bewildered by Bali? Tan Copsey provides a short background to the politics of global warming, Kyoto and why the world is watching the climate talks now taking place in Indonesia.

../

OK, but what’s Bali all about?

Bali hosts to the thirteenth UN Climate Change Conference. Yvo de Boer, the UNFCCC executive secretary, has said there are reasons to be optimistic about a more far-reaching agreement being reached at the meeting, stressing that the conference would be a “culmination of a momentous 12 months in the climate debate” . A large increase in public awareness of climate change has upped the political pressure for a more extensive accord, and many nations – including prominent EU countries – will be pushing for increased reduction targets.

However, the negotiations are likely to hinge on the positions taken by the US and China, the world’s two largest emitters, whose positions have been highly interdependent historically. Neither nation has agreed yet to binding targets. China needs the US to take the lead in reducing emissions, but the Bush administration has refused to sign up to targets without the participation of developing countries. The likelihood of this impasse being overcome at Bali remains slim.

Negotiations at Bali are expected to focus on extending Kyoto’s central approach, which is characterised by “liberal environmental” economic mechanisms such as emissions trading and technology transfer.

However, issues such as mitigation, deforestation, development and resource mobilisation also will be addressed, and increasingly urgent discussions of climate-change adaptation will take place – reflecting the increased acceptance that climate change is not entirely preventable.

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Geo-4 "Global Environmental Outlook" - Bleak for Mankind

UNEP have just released their "Global Environmental Outlook". Generally speaking humanity remains at risk from climate change, food shortages and a collapse in biodiversity. In short, things are looking rather bleak.

There is a lot of interesting material to wade through.

This post has gone multimedia with links to podcasts and videos after the press release.

"The fourth Global Environment Outlook: environment for development (GEO-4) assessment is a comprehensive and authoritative UN report on environment, development and human well-being, providing incisive analysis and information for decision making."

Here is the English Press release:

Planet’s Tougher Problems Persist, UN Report Warns

Nairobi/New York, 25 October: The United Nations Environment Programme says that major threats to the planet such as climate change, the rate of extinction of species, and the challenge of feeding a growing population are among the many that remain unresolved, and all of them put humanity at risk.

The warning comes in UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook: environment for development (GEO-4) report published 20 years after the World Commission on Environment and Development the Brundtland Commission) produced its seminal report, Our Common Future.

GEO-4, the latest in UNEP’s series of flagship reports, assesses the current state of the global atmosphere, land, water and biodiversity, describes the changes since 1987, and identifies priorities for action. GEO-4 is the most comprehensive UN report on the environment, prepared by about 390 experts and reviewed by more than 1 000 others across the world.

It salutes the world’s progress in tackling some relatively straightforward problems, with the environment now much closer to mainstream politics everywhere. But despite these advances, there remain the harder-to-manage issues, the “persistent” problems. Here, GEO-4 says:

“There are no major issues raised in Our Common Future for which the foreseeable trends are favourable.”

Failure to address these persistent problems, UNEP says, may undo all the achievements so far on the simpler issues, and may threaten humanity’s survival. But it insists: “The objective is not to present a dark and gloomy scenario, but an urgent call for action.”

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: “The international community’s response to the Brundtland Commission has in some cases been courageous and inspiring. But all too often it has been slow and at a pace and scale that fails to respond to or recognize the magnitude of the challenges facing the people and the environment of the planet”.

“Over the past 20 years, the international community has cut, by 95 per cent, the production of ozone-layer damaging chemicals; created a greenhouse gas emission reduction treaty along with innovative carbon trading and carbon offset markets; supported a rise in terrestrial protected areas to cover roughly 12 per cent of the Earth and devised numerous important instruments covering issues from biodiversity and desertification to the trade in hazardous wastes and living modified organisms,” he added.

UNEP FULL REPORT (22.5MB) - that is large.

UNP Director PODCAST

UNEP Press release VIDEO.

As an academic I always want to know how such reports are refereed before release especially after the farce of the Stern Review. The refereeing appears to be comprehensive enough.

Did the GEO-4 report undergo a peer review process? How were comments from reviewers addressed in the drafting of the GEO-4?

The GEO-4 report underwent two rounds of governmental and expert review. We received over 13 000 comments on the drafts of the GEO-4 report and 3 000 comments on the GEO-4 Summary for Decisions Makers. Every comment was recorded and addressed by the GEO-4 Chapter Expert Groups, and their responses to the comments were posted on a password-protected Web site. All reviewers were able to see the responses to their and others’ comments. The Web site is not available to the general public in order to maintain confidentiality and allow for candid feedback from the reviewers. Further review was provided by independent experts who served as review editors, ensuring that all review comments were adequately and objectively addressed by the Chapter Expert Groups.

Finally, we end on a slightly brighter note. The 4 main messages from the report almost read like there is a shaft of light at the end of the tunnel.

What are GEO-4’s main messages?

1. The world has changed considerably over the past 20 years, but we have not turned the corner towards sustainable development. We live in a better world than at any time in history, but unprecedented environmental change has made us more vulnerable than we have ever been.

2. Human innovation to engineer and exploit the environment is being countered by the force of environmental change itself. Change is happening faster than we can keep up with.

3. We have a much better toolbox and technologies to tackle some of the global challenges. We have better science, a more informed public, and a more proactive private sector but are yet to cross the threshold of sustained action and staying power to reverse the negative trends of environmental decline.

4. How many environmental assessment reports such as GEO-4 and various others that have been or are being launched in 2007 do we need to reach the tipping point? We have a better understanding of the challenges we face. We can undo and reverse some of the damage now unfolding, adapt to those we can’t, and cease opportunities to strengthen mitigation. But we don’t have the luxury of time – delay exacerbates the problems and increases the complexity and cost to address the problems of environmental decline. The time to act is NOW!

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Al "9 errors" Gore - the "Climate Change General"

I am as pleased as the next man that big Al was won the "Nobel Peace Prize".

In previous years it has certainly been won by those less deserving.

However, we have covered "the inconvenient truth" and the rigmarole surrounding it in depth over the last year and there is only so much one can take.

Hence, here are a few links to those still with the energy to go over all of it again. The TIME article is one of the best.

Gore's Nobel: A Green Tipping Point [TIME]

Climate scientists are obsessed with finding tipping points, the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable. For environmentalists, 2007 is likely to be remembered as the tipping point when public understanding of the existential threat of climate change reached a critical mass.

It is true that the launch of this blog last September was propitious timing. TIME trot out the old "what peace got to do with it" line:

Gore's win was widely expected, but there may still be those who wonder how an environmentalist could be, as the Peace Prize's description goes, the person who has "done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations." They shouldn't.

The best thing about this award is the credit given to the IPCC who provided the data and raw materials for Gore to use to get "climate change" into the living rooms of the general public (especially in the US).

TIME provide a good final quote:

But the final war on global warming will be fought not with PowerPoint but with politics, and it will be fought in the halls of power around the world. The scientists represented by the IPCC have spoken — what we need now are passionate, even partisan political soldiers to lead the way and push the final tipping point from awareness to action.

I can think of a pretty good general.

This post cannot pass without comment on the impressive timing of the "British judge" who found 9 errors with the "Inconvenient Truth". Convenient timing don't you think.

There is something fantastically British about some of the judges statements.

When Gore talks of 20 foot rises in sea levels that would swamp San Francisco to the Netherlands to Bangladesh the judge said this was "distinctly alarmist".

None of the errors are fatal but it is good to see the judicial system getting their teeth into a bit of "climate change".

U.K. Judge Rules Gore's Climate Film Has 9 Errors [Washington Post]

But he also said Gore makes nine statements in the film that are not supported by current mainstream scientific consensus. Teachers, Burton concluded, could show the film but must alert students to what the judge called errors.

The judge said that, for instance, Gore's script implies that Greenland or West Antarctica might melt in the near future, creating a sea level rise of up to 20 feet that would cause devastation from San Francisco to the Netherlands to Bangladesh. The judge called this "distinctly alarmist" and said the consensus view is that, if indeed Greenland melted, it would release this amount of water, "but only after, and over, millennia."

Burton also said Gore contends that inhabitants of low-lying Pacific atolls have had to evacuate to New Zealand because of global warming. "But there is no such evidence of any such evacuation," the judge said.

Another error, according to the judge, is that Gore says "a new scientific study shows that for the first time they are finding polar bears that have actually drowned swimming long distances up to 60 miles to find ice." Burton said that perhaps in the future polar bears will drown "by regression of pack-ice" but that the only study found on drowned polar bears attributed four deaths to a storm.

Other links:

Gore and U.N. Panel Win Peace Prize for Climate Work [New York Times]

If Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize, will he run for president?[Slate]

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Gambling on Global Warming

This new product from the US allows stock market investors to gamble on the "climate change solutions industry".

This is a nice little index that fits within the "ethical investment" craze. The returns to date seem impressive.

The question is whether climate change is all hype and whether there are technological solutions to the current problems.

It is hard to see demand for solutions falling given the IPCC figures so this might be a canny investment at least over the short to medium term or until there is something else to worry about or the oil price falls so much that no solution is cost effective.

US-Based Index Allows Bets on Global Warming Fight

NEW YORK - Boston-based group KLD Research & Analytics licensed an index on Wednesday that allows investors to bet on companies taking steps to combat global warming.

KLD says its Global Climate 100 Index holds small to large-cap companies whose activities reduce the social and economic consequences of climate change.

The weighted index holds 100 companies ranging from the energy and utility sectors to industrials and consumer products. Some of the companies invest in efficiency and buy power from renewable sources.

That differentiates the index from pure-play renewable energy investment products, KLD spokesman Chris McKnett said.

"We are trying to provide investors exposure to the global climate solutions value chain. The sources of climate change are dispersed across the economy and our view is that sustainable solutions also have to be dispersed across the economy," he said in telephone interview.

Last quarter the index achieved a return of 5.87 percent and annualized returns since the index's inception in the summer of 2005 were 22.38 percent, KLD said.

Among companies the index holds are Whole Foods Market, Inc., which purchases renewable energy credits to offset 100 percent of its electricity needs in North America, and Itron, Inc., which manages the delivery and use of energy and water to increase efficiency.

It also holds Japanese company Sekisui Chemical Co. , which has built homes that operate on solar energy since 1998.

KLD licensed the index with Fixed Income Securities, L.P.

Bill McKibben on Global Warming

A good summary article on IPCC and global warming in general:

The UN climate-change panel’s new report is an opaque, conservative and nonpolitical document. Bill McKibben sums up its stark message: quick, deep cuts in fossil-fuel emissions are needed immediately.

For full text see ChinaDialogue

Does this conclusion offer hope that the US is ready to act?

The only really encouraging development is the groundswell of public concern that has built over the last year, beginning with the reaction to Hurricane Katrina and Al Gore’s movie. In January 2007, a few of us launched an initiative called stepitup07.org. It calls for Americans to organise rallies in their own communities on April 14 asking for congressional action. In the first few weeks the website was open, more than six-hundred groups in forty-six states registered to hold demonstrations -- this will clearly be the largest organised response to global warming yet in the United States. The groups range from environmental outfits to evangelical churches to college sororities, united only by the visceral sense (fueled in part by this winter’s bizarre weather) that the planet has been knocked out of whack. The IPCC assessment offers a modest account of just how far out of whack it is -- and just how hard we’re going to have to work to have even a chance at limiting the damage.

The Great Global Warming Swindle

On Thursday 8th March 2007 at 9pm in the UK, Channel 4 will show a documentary called "The Great Global Warming Swindle".

TV Schedule

The Great Global Warming Swindle
Polemical film challenging the consensus that man-made CO2 is heating up the earth. Featuring leading academics, the film questions the science behind the accepted reasons for global warming and argues other explanations for climate change are not being properly aired.

George Monbiot has a good piece dated 30th Jan. 2007 that discusses this programme (and other things - I have picked out the bits relevant to this program).

Another Species of Denial

A company called WAG TV is currently completing a 90-minute documentary for Channel 4 called “The Great Global Warming Swindle”. Manmade climate change, the channel tells us, is “a lie … the biggest scam of modern times. The truth is that Global Warming is a multi-billion dollar worldwide industry: created by fanatically anti-industrial environmentalists; supported by scientists peddling scare stories to chase funding; and propped up by complicit politicians and the media. ... The fact is that CO2 has no proven link to global temperatures … solar activity is far more likely to be the culprit.”(10)

So it’s the same old conspiracy theory that we’ve been hearing from the denial industry for the past ten years, and it carries as much scientific weight as the contention that the Twin Towers were brought down by missiles. The programme’s thesis revolves around the deniers’ favourite canard: that the “hockey-stick graph” showing rising global temperatures is based on a statistical mistake made in a paper by the scientists Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes(11). What it will not be showing is that their results have now been repeated several times by other scientists using different statistical methods(12); that the paper claiming to have exposed the mistake has been comprehensively debunked(13) and that the lines of evidence used by Mann, Bradley and Hughes are just a few among hundreds demonstrating that 20th century temperatures were anomalous.

The decision to commission this programme seems even odder when you discover who is making it. In 1997, the director, Martin Durkin, produced a very similar series for Channel 4 called “Against Nature”, which also maintained that global warming was a scam dreamt up by environmentalists. It was riddled with hilarious scientific howlers. More damagingly, the only way in which Durkin could sustain his thesis was to deceive the people he interviewed and to edit their answers to change their meaning. Following complaints by his interviewees, the Independent Television Commission found that “the views of the four complainants, as made clear to the interviewer, had been distorted by selective editing” and that they had been “misled as to the content and purpose of the programmes when they agreed to take part.”(14) Channel 4 was obliged to broadcast one of the most humiliating primetime apologies it has ever made. Are institutional memories really so short?

So now the whole weary business of pointing out that the evidence against manmade climate change is sparse and unable to withstand critical scrutiny while the evidence in favour is overwhelming and repeatedly confirmed must begin all over again. How often do scientists have to remind the media that a handful of cherry-picked studies does not amount to the refutation of an entire discipline?

Dominic Lawson also discusses the program from a sceptics perspective in today's Independent.

Dominic Lawson: Here is another inconvenient truth (but this one will infuriate the Green lobby)

The article ends:

Even if you don't buy that, you should definitely watch the programme, if only to see the head of the International Arctic Research Centre, Syun-Ichi Akasofu, describe how "the Arctic has always been expanding and contracting ... the press come here all the time and ask us: will you say something about the Greenhouse disaster? And I say: there is none."

Then Dr Akasofu emits a tiny laugh - the laugh of a true scientist at the idiocy and hysteria of the world's media and politicians

For Debunking the "The Great Global Warming Swindle" two follow up posts on this blog are:

Debunking "The Great Global Warming Swindle" and
The Great Global Warming Swindle: The Fightback

The "Great Global Warming Swindle" debate took a highly amusing twist today with the leak of an email exchange between the executive producer Martin Durkin and two of the British scientists who questioned the accuracy of the story.

Martin Durkin to Climate Change Scientists: "You're a big daft cock"

Update:

New Durkin update (March 20th 2007).
It's a Swindle: Durkin Wiggles, Channel 4 runs

"IPCC draft report in FULL": Embargo Broken

With the release on Friday of the IPCC Policymakers summary comes news that Junkscience.com have released their 2006 copy of the second draft of the full IPCC report that the recent summary is based upon. There are some serious megabytes of report available to download.

Officially we still have to wait another few months for the full and final edited report. It is a surprise therefore to see an embargo on earlier drafts broken by Junkscience.

Below is their argument for this release.

As everyone is probably by now aware, Friday, February 2, 2007 marks the release of the IPCC's political document: Assessment Report 4, Summary for Policymakers. The media seem to be operating under the misapprehension this is equivalent to the release of IPCC Working Group I Contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis -- this is regrettably neither true nor even close to the truth.

Bizarrely, the actual report will be retained for another three months to facilitate editing -- to suit the summary! IPCC procedures state that: Changes (other than grammatical or minor editorial changes) made after acceptance by the Working Group or the Panel shall be those necessary to ensure consistency with the Summary for Policymakers or the Overview Chapter (Appendix A to the Principles Governing IPCC Work, p4/15) -- this is surely unacceptable and would not be tolerated in virtually any other field (witness the media frenzy because language was allegedly altered in some US climate reports).

Under the circumstances we feel we have no choice but to publicly release the second-order draft report documents so that everyone has at least the chance to compare the summary statements with the underlying documentation. It should not be necessary for us to break embargo and post raw drafts for you to verify a summary of publicly funded documentation (tax payers around the world have paid billions of dollars for this effort -- you own it and you should be able to access it).

Reluctantly then, here is the link to our archive copy of the second-order draft of IPCC Working Group I Contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. The second-order draft was distributed in 2006, 5 years into what has so far been a 6 year process and these copies were archived last May.

We would be interested to know what other bloggers think of this break of the embargo if that is what it actually is. One could argue that this post only fuels the flames with what little puff this blog has but surely that is what blogs are for. I hope no messengers are injured.

Thanks to Kate Sheppard (see previous post) for the hat-tip.

IPCC report: Overview of the Overviews

In addition to the hundreds of blog reviews and comments on the IPCC report the newspapers have been full of doomsday scenarios and impending catastrophic events that will inevitably kill us all.

This post is to provide a series of links for those wanting further reading:

Reactions to UN Climate Panel Report


Reactions to the report from various luminaries (Planetark summary).

The IPCC Fourth Assessment SPM

Provides a "first cut" at a summary of the Policy makers summary.

IPCC: Now that we've all agreed, let's disagree

A good series of links from Kate Sheppard at Gristmill.

Who and what are the IPCC - FAQ

Linking from Grist this is a good post by Sarah Burch on Terry. Anything you want to know about the IPCC answered. Good resource.

Global warming: the final warning [Independent Front Page]

In this article the Indy describes the effects of different rises in temperature. I quote just the last two as they provide a particularly bleak picture.

Two lines that stand out are: "World food supplies run out" and "Most of life on Earth has been snuffed out". Cheery stuff.

+5.4°: Sea levels rise by five metres

The West Antarctic ice sheet breaks up, eventually adding another five metres to global sea levels. If these temperatures are sustained, the entire planet will become ice-free, and sea levels will be 70 metres higher than today. South Asian society collapses due to the disappearance of glaciers in the Himalayas, drying up the Indus river, while in east India and Bangladesh, monsoon floods threaten millions. Super-El Niños spark global weather chaos. Most of humanity begins to seek refuge away from higher temperatures closer to the poles. Tens of millions of refugees force their way into Scandanavia and the British Isles. World food supplies run out.

+6.4°: Most of life is exterminated

Warming seas lead to the possible release of methane hydrates trapped in sub-oceanic sediments: methane fireballs tear across the sky, causing further warming. The oceans lose their oxygen and turn stagnant, releasing poisonous hydrogen sulphide gas and destroying the ozone layer. Deserts extend almost to the Arctic. "Hypercanes" (hurricanes of unimaginable ferocity) circumnavigate the globe, causing flash floods which strip the land of soil. Humanity reduced to a few survivors eking out a living in polar refuges. Most of life on Earth has been snuffed out, as temperatures rise higher than for hundreds of millions of years.

Economists offered CASH to dispute IPCC report

If we thought Exxon and the oil companies had changed their ways we had better think again.

In a disappointing story from today's Guardian come news that:

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

I have checked my post twice today but still nothing. How does one qualify?

Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.

Intriguing - additional payments for what?

The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.

The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".

Climate scientists described the move yesterday as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on global warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims," said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

This is a great quote though:

Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said: "The AEI is more than just a thinktank, it functions as the Bush administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the last throes of their campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the science; they lost on the moral case for action. All they've got left is a suitcase full of cash."

What is depressing is just how much it is possible to buy for a suitcase full of cash.
It appears that other oil sponsored think-tanks will be hard on their heels:

On Monday, another Exxon-funded organisation based in Canada will launch a review in London which casts doubt on the IPCC report. Among its authors are Tad Murty, a former scientist who believes human activity makes no contribution to global warming. Confirmed VIPs attending include Nigel Lawson and David Bellamy, who believes there is no link between burning fossil fuels and global warming.

Released: "IPCC Report"

Although every vaguely related green blog will be posting this link here it is for the record.

IPCC REPORT (PDF)

"Global Warming Facts": Impact of Temperature Rises

This post brings together a series of facts about global warming from PlanetArk ahead of today's IPCC report.

1. The Impacts of Temperature Rises
2. Future Projections
3. UN Climate Panel and Past Reports

Global Warming: Impacts of Temperature Rises

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will publish a report, the most complete overview of climate change science, in Paris on Feb. 2. It will guide policy makers combating global warming.

A draft of the report projects temperatures rising by 2 to 4.5 Celsius (3.6 to 8.1 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by 2100, with a "best estimate" of a 3C (5.4 F) rise.

Below are some estimates of the global implications of different temperature rises in degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels, as detailed in a report on climate change by Nicholas Stern, chief British government economist, published in October.

Temp. rise/ Impacts 1 DEGREE

* Shrinking glaciers threaten water for 50 million people

* Modest increases in cereal yields in temperate regions

* At least 300,000 people each year die from malaria, malnutrition and other climate-related diseases

* Reduction in winter mortality in higher latitudes

* 80 percent bleaching of coral reefs, e.g. Great Barrier Reef

2 DEGREES

* 5 - 10 percent decline in crop yield in tropical Africa

* 40 - 60 million more people exposed to malaria in Africa

* Up to 10 million more people affected by coastal flooding

* 15 - 40 percent of species face extinction (one estimate)

* High risk of extinction of Arctic species, e.g. polar bear

* Potential for Greenland ice sheet to start to melt irreversibly, committing world to 7 metre sea level rise

3 DEGREES

* In Southern Europe, serious droughts once every 10 years

* 1 - 4 billion more people suffer water shortages

* Some 150 - 550 additional millions at risk of hunger

* 1 - 3 million more people die from malnutrition

* Onset of Amazon forest collapse (some models only)

* Rising risk of collapse of West Antarctic Ice Sheet

* Rising risk of collapse of Atlantic Conveyor of warm water

* Rising risk of abrupt changes to the monsoon

4 DEGREES

* Agricultural yields decline by 15 - 35 percent in Africa

* Up to 80 million more people exposed to malaria in Africa

* Loss of around half Arctic tundra

5 DEGREES

* Possible disappearance of large glaciers in Himalayas, affecting one-quarter of China's population, many in India

* Continued increase in ocean acidity seriously disrupting marine ecosystems and possibly fish stocks

* Sea level rise threatens small islands, coastal areas such as Florida and major cities such as New York, London, and Tokyo

Future Projections:

Temperatures are likely to rise by 2-4.5 Celsius (3.6-8.1 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels if carbon dioxide concentrations are kept at 550 parts per million in the atmosphere, against about 380 now. The "best estimate" for the rise is about 3C (5.4F).

- The warming is very unlikely to be less than 1.5C (2.7F). Rises much above 4.5C cannot be ruled out but those computer projections do not fit well with observations. Main uncertainties are whether more clouds will form in a warmer world -- and bounce heat back into space.

- The report cites six models with core projections of sea level rises ranging from 28 to 43 cms (11.0-16.9 inches) by 2100. That is a narrower and lower band than the 9 to 88 cms gain (3.5-34.6 inches) forecast in 2001.

- It is "very likely" that extremes such as heatwaves and heavy rains will become more frequent. Arctic sea ice could disappear in summer by the latter part of the 21st century in some projection. Warming is expected to be greatest over land and at high northern latitudes, and least over the Southern Ocean and North Atlantic.

- Antarctica is likely to stay too cold for wide surface melting and is expected to gain in mass due to more snow.

- A system of Atlantic currents including the Gulf Stream, bringing warm waters northwards, are very likely to slow by 2100 but an overall warming will more than offset any cooling effect. The draft says that an abrupt shift is "very unlikely".

UN Climate Panel and Past Reports

Following are some facts about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC):

- The IPCC was set up in 1988 by the United Nations to help policy makers address climate change. It draws on work by about 2,500 specialists in more than 130 countries.

- A draft of the new report, the IPCC's fourth assessment, says that it is "very likely" that human activities, led by burning fossil fuels, are the main cause of warming in the past 50 years. "Very likely" means more than 90 percent probability.

- The 2001 study said there was "new and stronger evidence" linking human activities to rising temperatures. It also said it was "likely" that human activities caused most of the warming in the last half century -- "likely" means at least a 66 percent chance.

- In 1995, the IPCC report concluded that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate". That report paved the way to the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol in 1997, which obliges 35 industrial nations to cut greenhouse gases to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

- The first report in 1990 outlined risks of rising temperatures and played a role in prompting governments to agree a 1992 U.N. climate convention that set a non-binding goal of stabilising greenhouse gases at 1990 levels by 2000. That target was not met overall.

- Concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, largely from burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and vehicles, have risen by more a third since before the Industrial Revolution.

- Temperatures rose by about 0.6 Celsius (1.1 Fahrenheit) during the 20th century. The 10 warmest years since records began in the 1850s have been since 1994.

- Rising temperatures are likely to cause more floods, erosion, desertification, heatwaves, drive many species to extinction and raise global sea levels. Benefits in some regions may include longer growing seasons.