Climate Change News Part. 2
IPCC report: global warming to increase heatwaves, flooding and conflict
Danielle Demetriou in Yokohama
1:00AM BST 31 Mar 2014
The full impact of global warming over the coming decades is outlined in stark detail in the most comprehensive
inter-governmental study to date
Flooding, storm surges, droughts and heatwaves are among the key risks of global warming that will pose the greatest threat to humans in the future, according to the most authoritative report to date on the impact of climate change.
Violent conflicts and food shortages were also forecast to increase over coming decades due to rising temperatures, while a growing number of animal and marine species will face increased risk of extinction.
The warnings were published on Monday in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group II report, which was compiled by more than 300 expert authors from 70 different countries and is the first of its kind to examine rising temperatures as a series of comprehensive global risks. "We live in an era of man-made climate change," said Vicente Barros, a leading Argentine-born climate change expert and a co-chair of the report. "In many cases, we are not prepared for the climate-related risks that we already face. Investments in better preparation can pay dividends both for the present and for the future."
A worsening cycle of extreme weather patterns was among the most perilous of impacts to feature in the report, which warns that climate change is already in the process of leaving a damaging footprint on the planet. A higher risk of flooding was cited as a major consequence of rising greenhouse gas emissions, with Europe, Asia and small island states highlighted as being most vulnerable, while droughts were also forecast to become more common. Urban communities would also face "many global risks", as a result of growing issues related to heatwaves, extreme rainfall, flooding, landslides, air pollution drought and water shortages, it warned. An increase in violent conflicts, such as civil war, were cited as further consequences of global warming in terms of human security, alongside the displacements of communities around the globe.
A "large fraction" of animals and marine creatures also faced an increased risk of extinction over the coming decades if global warming continued as projected, according to the report. However, scientists behind the report also stated that by taking immediate steps to reduce carbon emissions over the coming decades, there could be a reduction in potential consequences by the end of the century. "Climate-change adaptation is not an exotic agenda that has never been tried," said Chris Field, a global ecology director at the Carnegie Institution in Washington and also co-chair of the report, entitled "Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability". "Governments, firms, and communities around the world are building experience with adaptation. This experience forms a starting point for bolder, more ambitious adaptations that will be important as climate and society continue to change."
The report prompted a string of global calls for stronger government initiatives to tackle the issues that are causing temperatures to rise in order to minimise the future dangers outlined by scientists. Sven Harmeling, climate change advocacy coordinator at the humanitarian agency CARE, said: "From more extreme and intense weather-related disasters, to reduced food security, to rising sea-levels, climate change is fast becoming a scandal of epic proportions for the world's poorest people - and it's unfolding right before our eyes."
Tim Gore, Oxfam's head of policy for food and climate change, added: "This report is categorical that climate change has already meant significant declines in net global yields of staple crops like wheat and maize. "Climate change will continue to hit crop harvests hard in the future, at the same time as demand for food is increasing. You don't need to be a climate scientist to know that falling crop yields and rising demand does not add up to a food secure future on this planet."
The panel of global experts behind the study, which has issued four previous "assessment reports" over the past 25 years, will issue a third volume on April 13 in Berlin, in which it will unveil its strategies for tackling carbon emissions. The latest study is the most in-depth to date, in terms of forecasting the impact of global warming in specific details in addition to emphasising the social consequences in terms of conflicts and displacement. It comes six months after the first volume of the long-awaited report declared that scientists were more certain than ever that humans were behind the growing problem of global warming.
It was seven years ago that the IPCC issued its last major report, which was widely attributed with fuelling a shift in global climate change policies leading up to the 2009 UN climate summit in Copenhagen. However, the reputation of the report was tainted when it emerged that there were several mistakes, in particular relating to glaciers, which were hailed as proof of bias by climate change sceptics. The most recent report published Monday has not been without its controversy, with one of its authors pulling out of the writing team just days before publication last week, amid claims that it was too "alarmist".
Richard Tol, a Dutch professor of economics at Sussex University, told media that he had decided to withdraw from the report because he disagreed with some of the findings. Acknowledging that some authors "strongly disagree with me", he told Reuters: "The drafts became too alarmist."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange
Violent conflicts and food shortages were also forecast to increase over coming decades due to rising temperatures, while a growing number of animal and marine species will face increased risk of extinction.
The warnings were published on Monday in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group II report, which was compiled by more than 300 expert authors from 70 different countries and is the first of its kind to examine rising temperatures as a series of comprehensive global risks. "We live in an era of man-made climate change," said Vicente Barros, a leading Argentine-born climate change expert and a co-chair of the report. "In many cases, we are not prepared for the climate-related risks that we already face. Investments in better preparation can pay dividends both for the present and for the future."
A worsening cycle of extreme weather patterns was among the most perilous of impacts to feature in the report, which warns that climate change is already in the process of leaving a damaging footprint on the planet. A higher risk of flooding was cited as a major consequence of rising greenhouse gas emissions, with Europe, Asia and small island states highlighted as being most vulnerable, while droughts were also forecast to become more common. Urban communities would also face "many global risks", as a result of growing issues related to heatwaves, extreme rainfall, flooding, landslides, air pollution drought and water shortages, it warned. An increase in violent conflicts, such as civil war, were cited as further consequences of global warming in terms of human security, alongside the displacements of communities around the globe.
A "large fraction" of animals and marine creatures also faced an increased risk of extinction over the coming decades if global warming continued as projected, according to the report. However, scientists behind the report also stated that by taking immediate steps to reduce carbon emissions over the coming decades, there could be a reduction in potential consequences by the end of the century. "Climate-change adaptation is not an exotic agenda that has never been tried," said Chris Field, a global ecology director at the Carnegie Institution in Washington and also co-chair of the report, entitled "Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability". "Governments, firms, and communities around the world are building experience with adaptation. This experience forms a starting point for bolder, more ambitious adaptations that will be important as climate and society continue to change."
The report prompted a string of global calls for stronger government initiatives to tackle the issues that are causing temperatures to rise in order to minimise the future dangers outlined by scientists. Sven Harmeling, climate change advocacy coordinator at the humanitarian agency CARE, said: "From more extreme and intense weather-related disasters, to reduced food security, to rising sea-levels, climate change is fast becoming a scandal of epic proportions for the world's poorest people - and it's unfolding right before our eyes."
Tim Gore, Oxfam's head of policy for food and climate change, added: "This report is categorical that climate change has already meant significant declines in net global yields of staple crops like wheat and maize. "Climate change will continue to hit crop harvests hard in the future, at the same time as demand for food is increasing. You don't need to be a climate scientist to know that falling crop yields and rising demand does not add up to a food secure future on this planet."
The panel of global experts behind the study, which has issued four previous "assessment reports" over the past 25 years, will issue a third volume on April 13 in Berlin, in which it will unveil its strategies for tackling carbon emissions. The latest study is the most in-depth to date, in terms of forecasting the impact of global warming in specific details in addition to emphasising the social consequences in terms of conflicts and displacement. It comes six months after the first volume of the long-awaited report declared that scientists were more certain than ever that humans were behind the growing problem of global warming.
It was seven years ago that the IPCC issued its last major report, which was widely attributed with fuelling a shift in global climate change policies leading up to the 2009 UN climate summit in Copenhagen. However, the reputation of the report was tainted when it emerged that there were several mistakes, in particular relating to glaciers, which were hailed as proof of bias by climate change sceptics. The most recent report published Monday has not been without its controversy, with one of its authors pulling out of the writing team just days before publication last week, amid claims that it was too "alarmist".
Richard Tol, a Dutch professor of economics at Sussex University, told media that he had decided to withdraw from the report because he disagreed with some of the findings. Acknowledging that some authors "strongly disagree with me", he told Reuters: "The drafts became too alarmist."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange
The combination of thermal expansion, melting ice, and extreme precipitation are contributing to flooding, which significantly increases the costs of climate change. Recent flooding in Central Europe accrued unprecedented costs and the UK in particular experienced some of the worst flooding in the island nation’s history. We have seen record setting downpours in Japan and recurrent widespread flooding in Australia. Last summer, we saw “Biblical flooding” in Colorado and most recently, the Balkans are suffering under a massive deluge. Even countries in the Middle East have been inundated by anomalous heavy precipitation in recent times.
In the past 140 years, sea levels have risen 7.7 inches and they are rising faster all the time. By the end of this century, scientists predict the seas will rise by as much as 7 feet. This will inundate cities around the world, including 1700 U.S. cities and the homes and businesses of 5 million Americans. By 2100, up to 600 million people or five percent of the global population could be affected by coastal flooding.
Melting ice and rising seasThere are more than five million cubic miles of ice on Earth and it is melting faster at an ever increasing pace. Our current average temperature of 58 Fahrenheit is steadily rising and if left unchecked we are headed towards an average temperature that could exceed 80 degrees. Already Antarctic glaciers have passed points of no return as they lose 160 billion tons of ice per year. Other glaciers are also melting at surprisingly fast rates all around the world. As pointed out in the Third US National Climate Assessment, this includes those in BC and Alaska.
We cannot avoid the realization that the world is getting warmer and the more it warms, the more ice we will lose. If all the ice on land melted and drained into the sea it would raise sea levels 216 feet and effectively recreate new shorelines for our continents and inland seas.
Although it is hard to attribute any individual weather event to climate change, there is a growing body of evidence that is making it easier for scientists to say with confidence that climate change is behind changing precipitation patterns. Scientists, including those involved with the latest IPCC reports and the Third US National Climate Assessment, concur that ice is melting, storm surges are increasing, as are extreme rates of precipitation. Even individual extreme precipitation events like that in the UK are being attributed to climate change.
When we think of flood damage, we commonly think of the impact on buildings. However, we need to be mindful that the costs extend beyond the immediate damage from water infiltration. We need to understand that floods kill people and destroy livelihoods. They deny people access to water, food, power and communications. In their aftermath, they commonly breed disease.
They also cause landslides like the one in Washington state this year and are even related to mass migrations. For example, the recent floods in the Balkans led to over 2000 landslides and they drove some of the largest mass migrations since the war in the 1990s.
The cost of increased floodingFlooding is already very expensive and the situation is expected to get far worse. The cost of the flooding in the Balkans alone is hundreds of millions of dollars. With a price tag of $15.2 billion, the summer floods in Germany and central Europe was the costliest event in 2013. This was even more costly than Hurricane Haiyan’s $10 billion price tag.
Even before 2013, the EU had already spent $6.7 billion on flooding since the dawn of the new millennium. Scientists predict that flooding will double in the EU by 2050, which is expected to increase costs to $32.1 billion by 2050. Even this price tag is nothing compared to Hurricane Sandy, which on its own, cost the state of New York almost 50 billion.
A World Bank study indicates that the cost of flooding in 2005 was $6 billion. That number could skyrocket to at least 1 trillion annually by 2050. According to a new study, storm surges alone could increase costs from the current level of about $10-40 billion per year to up to $100,000 billion per year by the end of century. The World Bank analysis indicates that more than 40 percent of these costs could come from just four cities, three American and one Chinese (New Orleans, Miami and New York in the U.S. and Guangzhou in China).
Delays in engaging climate change are proving to be very costly. In the last two years alone delays in adopting mitigation and adaptation efforts have already cost us $8 trillion. The longer we wait the higher the price tag. A cost benefit analysis convincingly demonstrates the logic of paying now rather than later. Driven by a bottom line mentality, many large firms are engaging the risks and costs associated with climate change. A recent CDP report reveals that some of the world’s biggest brands see the merits of taking action to deal with flooding and other corollaries of climate change.
A study from the Global Climate Forum (GCF) illustrates the merits of investing in adaptation to address risks from flooding. “If we ignore this problem, the consequences will be dramatic,” explained Jochen Hinkel from GCF and the study’s lead author.
We cannot afford to ignore the problem any longer. Unless we seriously engage mitigation and adaptation efforts, the costs of flooding will only get worse.
http://globalwarmingisreal.com/2014/05/22/costs-climate-change-induced-flooding/#respond
In the past 140 years, sea levels have risen 7.7 inches and they are rising faster all the time. By the end of this century, scientists predict the seas will rise by as much as 7 feet. This will inundate cities around the world, including 1700 U.S. cities and the homes and businesses of 5 million Americans. By 2100, up to 600 million people or five percent of the global population could be affected by coastal flooding.
Melting ice and rising seasThere are more than five million cubic miles of ice on Earth and it is melting faster at an ever increasing pace. Our current average temperature of 58 Fahrenheit is steadily rising and if left unchecked we are headed towards an average temperature that could exceed 80 degrees. Already Antarctic glaciers have passed points of no return as they lose 160 billion tons of ice per year. Other glaciers are also melting at surprisingly fast rates all around the world. As pointed out in the Third US National Climate Assessment, this includes those in BC and Alaska.
We cannot avoid the realization that the world is getting warmer and the more it warms, the more ice we will lose. If all the ice on land melted and drained into the sea it would raise sea levels 216 feet and effectively recreate new shorelines for our continents and inland seas.
Although it is hard to attribute any individual weather event to climate change, there is a growing body of evidence that is making it easier for scientists to say with confidence that climate change is behind changing precipitation patterns. Scientists, including those involved with the latest IPCC reports and the Third US National Climate Assessment, concur that ice is melting, storm surges are increasing, as are extreme rates of precipitation. Even individual extreme precipitation events like that in the UK are being attributed to climate change.
When we think of flood damage, we commonly think of the impact on buildings. However, we need to be mindful that the costs extend beyond the immediate damage from water infiltration. We need to understand that floods kill people and destroy livelihoods. They deny people access to water, food, power and communications. In their aftermath, they commonly breed disease.
They also cause landslides like the one in Washington state this year and are even related to mass migrations. For example, the recent floods in the Balkans led to over 2000 landslides and they drove some of the largest mass migrations since the war in the 1990s.
The cost of increased floodingFlooding is already very expensive and the situation is expected to get far worse. The cost of the flooding in the Balkans alone is hundreds of millions of dollars. With a price tag of $15.2 billion, the summer floods in Germany and central Europe was the costliest event in 2013. This was even more costly than Hurricane Haiyan’s $10 billion price tag.
Even before 2013, the EU had already spent $6.7 billion on flooding since the dawn of the new millennium. Scientists predict that flooding will double in the EU by 2050, which is expected to increase costs to $32.1 billion by 2050. Even this price tag is nothing compared to Hurricane Sandy, which on its own, cost the state of New York almost 50 billion.
A World Bank study indicates that the cost of flooding in 2005 was $6 billion. That number could skyrocket to at least 1 trillion annually by 2050. According to a new study, storm surges alone could increase costs from the current level of about $10-40 billion per year to up to $100,000 billion per year by the end of century. The World Bank analysis indicates that more than 40 percent of these costs could come from just four cities, three American and one Chinese (New Orleans, Miami and New York in the U.S. and Guangzhou in China).
Delays in engaging climate change are proving to be very costly. In the last two years alone delays in adopting mitigation and adaptation efforts have already cost us $8 trillion. The longer we wait the higher the price tag. A cost benefit analysis convincingly demonstrates the logic of paying now rather than later. Driven by a bottom line mentality, many large firms are engaging the risks and costs associated with climate change. A recent CDP report reveals that some of the world’s biggest brands see the merits of taking action to deal with flooding and other corollaries of climate change.
A study from the Global Climate Forum (GCF) illustrates the merits of investing in adaptation to address risks from flooding. “If we ignore this problem, the consequences will be dramatic,” explained Jochen Hinkel from GCF and the study’s lead author.
We cannot afford to ignore the problem any longer. Unless we seriously engage mitigation and adaptation efforts, the costs of flooding will only get worse.
http://globalwarmingisreal.com/2014/05/22/costs-climate-change-induced-flooding/#respond
Cost of fighting warming 'modest,' says UN panel
Published on NewsOK Modified: April 13, 2014 at 10:39 am • Published: April 13, 2014
Activists of the international environmentalist organization Greenpeace pose with posters in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, April 13, 2014, to support clean energy. After a one week meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in Berlin the final document which is released on Sunday is expected to say that a global shift to renewable energy from fossil fuels like oil and coal are required to avoid potentially devastating sea level rise, flooding, droughts and other impacts of warming. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn) (Credit: AP)
BERLIN (AP) — The cost of keeping global warming in check is "relatively modest," but only if the world acts quickly to reverse the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, the head of the U.N.'s expert panel on climate change said Sunday.
Such gases, mainly CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels, rose on average by 2.2 percent a year in 2000-2010, driven by the use of coal in the power sector, officials said as they launched the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change's report on measures to fight global warming. Without additional measures to contain emissions, global temperatures will rise about 3 degrees to 4 degrees Celsuis (5 degrees to 7 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100 compared to current levels, the panel said.
"The longer we delay the higher would be the cost," IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri told The Associated Press after the panel's weeklong session in Berlin. "But despite that, the point I'm making is that even now, the cost is not something that's going to bring about a major disruption of economic systems. It's well within our reach."
The IPCC, an international body assessing climate science, projected that shifting the energy system from fossil fuels to zero- or low-carbon sources including wind and solar power would reduce consumption growth by about 0.06 percentage points per year, adding that that didn't take into account the economic benefits of reduced climate change. "The loss in consumption is relatively modest," Pachauri said. The IPCC said the shift would entail a near-quadrupling of low-carbon energy — which in the panel's projections included renewable sources as well as nuclear power and fossil fuel-fired plants equipped with technologies to capture some of the emissions.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called it a global economic opportunity. "So many of the technologies that will help us fight climate change are far cheaper, more readily available, and better performing than they were when the last IPCC assessment was released less than a decade ago," Kerry said. The IPCC said large changes in investments would be required. Fossil fuel investments in the power sector would drop by about $30 billion annually while investments in low-carbon sources would grow by $147 billion. Meanwhile, annual investments in energy efficiency in transport, buildings and industry sectors would grow by $336 billion.
The message contrasted with oil and gas company Exxon Mobil's projection two weeks ago that the world's climate policies are "highly unlikely" to stop it from selling fossil fuels far into the future, saying they are critical to global development and economic growth. Coal emissions have declined in the U.S. as some power plants have switched to lower-priced natural gas but they are fueling economic growth in China and India. The IPCC avoided singling out any countries or recommending how to share the costs of climate action in the report, the third of a four-part assessment on climate change. Though it is a scientific body, its summaries outlining the main findings of the underlying reports need to be approved by governments. This brings a political dimension to the process.
BERLIN (AP) — The cost of keeping global warming in check is "relatively modest," but only if the world acts quickly to reverse the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, the head of the U.N.'s expert panel on climate change said Sunday.
Such gases, mainly CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels, rose on average by 2.2 percent a year in 2000-2010, driven by the use of coal in the power sector, officials said as they launched the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change's report on measures to fight global warming. Without additional measures to contain emissions, global temperatures will rise about 3 degrees to 4 degrees Celsuis (5 degrees to 7 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100 compared to current levels, the panel said.
"The longer we delay the higher would be the cost," IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri told The Associated Press after the panel's weeklong session in Berlin. "But despite that, the point I'm making is that even now, the cost is not something that's going to bring about a major disruption of economic systems. It's well within our reach."
The IPCC, an international body assessing climate science, projected that shifting the energy system from fossil fuels to zero- or low-carbon sources including wind and solar power would reduce consumption growth by about 0.06 percentage points per year, adding that that didn't take into account the economic benefits of reduced climate change. "The loss in consumption is relatively modest," Pachauri said. The IPCC said the shift would entail a near-quadrupling of low-carbon energy — which in the panel's projections included renewable sources as well as nuclear power and fossil fuel-fired plants equipped with technologies to capture some of the emissions.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called it a global economic opportunity. "So many of the technologies that will help us fight climate change are far cheaper, more readily available, and better performing than they were when the last IPCC assessment was released less than a decade ago," Kerry said. The IPCC said large changes in investments would be required. Fossil fuel investments in the power sector would drop by about $30 billion annually while investments in low-carbon sources would grow by $147 billion. Meanwhile, annual investments in energy efficiency in transport, buildings and industry sectors would grow by $336 billion.
The message contrasted with oil and gas company Exxon Mobil's projection two weeks ago that the world's climate policies are "highly unlikely" to stop it from selling fossil fuels far into the future, saying they are critical to global development and economic growth. Coal emissions have declined in the U.S. as some power plants have switched to lower-priced natural gas but they are fueling economic growth in China and India. The IPCC avoided singling out any countries or recommending how to share the costs of climate action in the report, the third of a four-part assessment on climate change. Though it is a scientific body, its summaries outlining the main findings of the underlying reports need to be approved by governments. This brings a political dimension to the process.
Ramon Pichs Madruga, Co-Chairman of the IPCC Working Group III, Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chairman of the IPCC Working Group III, and Rejendra K. Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC, from left, pose prior to a press conference as part of a meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, April 13, 2014. The panel met from April 7, 2014 until April 12, 2014 in the German capital. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)
In Berlin, a dispute erupted over whether to include charts that showed emissions from large developing countries are rising the fastest as they expand their economies. Developing countries said linking emissions to income growth would divert attention from the fact that historically, most emissions have come from the developed nations, which industrialized earlier.
"This is the first step for developed countries of avoiding responsibilities and saying all countries have to assume the responsibility for climate change," said Diego Pacheco, the head of Bolivia's delegation in Berlin.
In the end the charts were taken out of the summary, but would remain in the underlying report, which was to be published later in the week, officials said. Counting all emissions since the industrial revolution in the 18th century, the U.S. is the top carbon polluter. China's current emissions are greater than those of the U.S. and rising quickly. China's historical emissions are expected to overtake those of the U.S. in the next decade. The IPCC summary also refrained from detailed discussions on what level of financial transfers are needed to help developing countries shift to cleaner energy and adapt to climate change.
Another IPCC report, released last month, warned that flooding, droughts and other climate impacts could have devastating effects on economies, agriculture and human health, particularly in developing countries. "The world's poorest nations are in need of economic development. But they need to be helped to leapfrog dirty energy and develop in a way which won't entrench their poverty by making climate change worse," said Mohamed Adow of charity group Christian Aid.
The IPCC reports provide the scientific basis for U.N. climate negotiations. Governments are supposed to adopt a new climate agreement next year that would rein in emissions after 2020. The ambition of that process is to keep warming below 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 Fahrenheit) compared to today's levels. Global temperatures have already gone up 0.8 Celsuis (1.4 Fahrenheit) since the start of record-keeping in the 19th century.
The IPCC, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore in 2007, said the U.N. goal is still possible but would require emissions cuts of 40 percent to 70 percent by 2050 and possibly the large-scale deployment of new technologies to suck CO2 out of the air and bury it deep underground.
"The IPCC is telling us in no uncertain terms that we are running out of time — but not out of solutions — if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change," said Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a Washington-based environmental group. "That requires decisive actions to curb carbon pollution — and an all-out race to embrace renewable sources of energy. History is calling."
Karl Ritter can be reached at www.twitter.com/karl_ritter
http://newsok.com/cost-of-fighting-warming-modest-says-un-panel/article/feed/673340
http://newsok.com/cost-of-fighting-warming-modest-says-un-panel/article/feed/673340/?page=2
In Berlin, a dispute erupted over whether to include charts that showed emissions from large developing countries are rising the fastest as they expand their economies. Developing countries said linking emissions to income growth would divert attention from the fact that historically, most emissions have come from the developed nations, which industrialized earlier.
"This is the first step for developed countries of avoiding responsibilities and saying all countries have to assume the responsibility for climate change," said Diego Pacheco, the head of Bolivia's delegation in Berlin.
In the end the charts were taken out of the summary, but would remain in the underlying report, which was to be published later in the week, officials said. Counting all emissions since the industrial revolution in the 18th century, the U.S. is the top carbon polluter. China's current emissions are greater than those of the U.S. and rising quickly. China's historical emissions are expected to overtake those of the U.S. in the next decade. The IPCC summary also refrained from detailed discussions on what level of financial transfers are needed to help developing countries shift to cleaner energy and adapt to climate change.
Another IPCC report, released last month, warned that flooding, droughts and other climate impacts could have devastating effects on economies, agriculture and human health, particularly in developing countries. "The world's poorest nations are in need of economic development. But they need to be helped to leapfrog dirty energy and develop in a way which won't entrench their poverty by making climate change worse," said Mohamed Adow of charity group Christian Aid.
The IPCC reports provide the scientific basis for U.N. climate negotiations. Governments are supposed to adopt a new climate agreement next year that would rein in emissions after 2020. The ambition of that process is to keep warming below 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 Fahrenheit) compared to today's levels. Global temperatures have already gone up 0.8 Celsuis (1.4 Fahrenheit) since the start of record-keeping in the 19th century.
The IPCC, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore in 2007, said the U.N. goal is still possible but would require emissions cuts of 40 percent to 70 percent by 2050 and possibly the large-scale deployment of new technologies to suck CO2 out of the air and bury it deep underground.
"The IPCC is telling us in no uncertain terms that we are running out of time — but not out of solutions — if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change," said Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a Washington-based environmental group. "That requires decisive actions to curb carbon pollution — and an all-out race to embrace renewable sources of energy. History is calling."
Karl Ritter can be reached at www.twitter.com/karl_ritter
http://newsok.com/cost-of-fighting-warming-modest-says-un-panel/article/feed/673340
http://newsok.com/cost-of-fighting-warming-modest-says-un-panel/article/feed/673340/?page=2
UN climate change guidelines to balance science and politics
The Associated Press Posted: Apr 12, 2014 11:20 AM ET Last Updated: Apr 12, 2014 11:20 AM ET
The final document, to be released Sunday, is expected to say that a global shift to renewable energy from fossil fuels like oil and coal are required to avoid potentially devastating impacts of warming. (Martin Meissner/Associated Press)
After racing against the clock in an all-night session, the UN's expert panel on climate change was putting the final touches Saturday on a scientific guide to help governments, industries and regular people take action to stop global warming from reaching dangerous levels.
As always when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change adopts one of its high-profile reports, the week-long talks in Berlin were slowed by wrangling between scientists and governments over which words, charts and tables to use in the roughly 30-page summary of a much bigger scientific report.
The painstaking process is meant to clarify the complex world of climate science to non-scientists but it also reflects the brinksmanship that characterizes international talks on climate action — so far unsuccessful in their goal to stop the rise of man-made carbon emissions blamed for global warming. Climate change report met with denial from Ottawa, NDP says Middle East drought could spark higher food prices Droughts show global warming is a 'scientific fact.' Global warming means food, water shortages warns UN report World temperatures go off the chart by 2047, study says
"Sometimes it's framed as if what the IPCC does is 'just the facts, ma'am,' and that of course is not accurate," said Steve Rayner, an Oxford scientist who has taken part in three of the IPCC's previous assessments, but not this one. "It's not pure science and it's not just politics," but a blend of both, Rayner said.
In Berlin, the politics showed through in a dispute over how to categorize countries in graphs showing the world's carbon emissions, which are currently growing the fastest in China and other developing countries. Like many scientific studies, the IPCC draft used a breakdown of emissions from low, lower-middle, upper-middle and high income countries. Some developing countries objected and wanted the graphs to follow the example of UN climate talks and use just two categories — developed and developing — according to three participants who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the IPCC session was closed to the public.
In earlier submitted comments obtained by AP, the U.S. suggested footnotes indicating where readers could "view specific countries listed in each category in addition to the income brackets." That reflects a nagging dispute in the UN talks, which are supposed to produce a global climate agreement next year. The U.S. and other industrialized nations want to scrap the binary rich-poor division, saying large emerging economies such as China, Brazil and India must adopt more stringent emissions cuts than poorer countries. The developing countries are worried it's a way for rich countries to shirk their own responsibilities to cut emissions.
Shift to renewable energy
The deadlock over the graphs appeared to have ended early Saturday after 20 hours of backroom negotiations led by IPCC vice chairman Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a Belgian. "I offered some Belgian Easter chocolate eggs to the participants of the Contact group at midnight: they helped!" van Ypersele wrote on Twitter early Saturday.
UN Climate Report
Children walk back home after school on a severely polluted day in Shijiazhuang, in northern China's Hebei province in February. (Alexander F. Yuan/The Associated Press, File)
Another snag: oil-rich Saudi Arabia objected to text saying emissions need to go down by 40 per cent to 70 per cent by 2050 for the world to stay below 2 degrees C of warming, participants told AP. One participant said the Saudis were concerned that putting down such a range was "policy-prescriptive," even though it reflects what the science says.
The final document, to be released Sunday, is expected to say that a global shift to renewable energy from fossil fuels like oil and coal are required to avoid potentially devastating sea level rise, flooding, droughts and other impacts of warming.
Global warming dials up our risks, UN report says
The report on mitigating climate change was the third of the IPCC's four-part assessment on climate change, its first since 2007.
Swedish environmental economist Thomas Sterner, a lead author of one of the chapters in the report, said the IPCC process can be frustrating to scientists. "There's a fight over every comma sign," he told AP. In a blog post from Berlin he said scientists addressing the meeting were told to "Keep our statements short and concise, avoid jargon, do not lecture the delegates, do not become emotional."
Chris Field, who co-chaired another IPCC session in Japan last month and sits on the panel's executive committee but did not have a direct role in the Berlin session, said one way to think about the process is that scientists have control of a two-way valve and can move findings into or out of the summary for policy-makers. The governments have a one-way valve and can only move things out of the document.
"The role of this one-way valve is important in thinking about why the findings of the IPCC always feel so measured and carefully couched," he said.
Many of the government interventions are "incredibly helpful" in making the text clearer, he added. "It is a pretty amazing process. But some of the interventions are not quite as time efficient."
© The Associated Press, 2014
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/un-climate-change-guidelines-to-balance-science-and-politics-1.2608022?cmp=rss
After racing against the clock in an all-night session, the UN's expert panel on climate change was putting the final touches Saturday on a scientific guide to help governments, industries and regular people take action to stop global warming from reaching dangerous levels.
As always when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change adopts one of its high-profile reports, the week-long talks in Berlin were slowed by wrangling between scientists and governments over which words, charts and tables to use in the roughly 30-page summary of a much bigger scientific report.
The painstaking process is meant to clarify the complex world of climate science to non-scientists but it also reflects the brinksmanship that characterizes international talks on climate action — so far unsuccessful in their goal to stop the rise of man-made carbon emissions blamed for global warming. Climate change report met with denial from Ottawa, NDP says Middle East drought could spark higher food prices Droughts show global warming is a 'scientific fact.' Global warming means food, water shortages warns UN report World temperatures go off the chart by 2047, study says
"Sometimes it's framed as if what the IPCC does is 'just the facts, ma'am,' and that of course is not accurate," said Steve Rayner, an Oxford scientist who has taken part in three of the IPCC's previous assessments, but not this one. "It's not pure science and it's not just politics," but a blend of both, Rayner said.
In Berlin, the politics showed through in a dispute over how to categorize countries in graphs showing the world's carbon emissions, which are currently growing the fastest in China and other developing countries. Like many scientific studies, the IPCC draft used a breakdown of emissions from low, lower-middle, upper-middle and high income countries. Some developing countries objected and wanted the graphs to follow the example of UN climate talks and use just two categories — developed and developing — according to three participants who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the IPCC session was closed to the public.
In earlier submitted comments obtained by AP, the U.S. suggested footnotes indicating where readers could "view specific countries listed in each category in addition to the income brackets." That reflects a nagging dispute in the UN talks, which are supposed to produce a global climate agreement next year. The U.S. and other industrialized nations want to scrap the binary rich-poor division, saying large emerging economies such as China, Brazil and India must adopt more stringent emissions cuts than poorer countries. The developing countries are worried it's a way for rich countries to shirk their own responsibilities to cut emissions.
Shift to renewable energy
The deadlock over the graphs appeared to have ended early Saturday after 20 hours of backroom negotiations led by IPCC vice chairman Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a Belgian. "I offered some Belgian Easter chocolate eggs to the participants of the Contact group at midnight: they helped!" van Ypersele wrote on Twitter early Saturday.
UN Climate Report
Children walk back home after school on a severely polluted day in Shijiazhuang, in northern China's Hebei province in February. (Alexander F. Yuan/The Associated Press, File)
Another snag: oil-rich Saudi Arabia objected to text saying emissions need to go down by 40 per cent to 70 per cent by 2050 for the world to stay below 2 degrees C of warming, participants told AP. One participant said the Saudis were concerned that putting down such a range was "policy-prescriptive," even though it reflects what the science says.
The final document, to be released Sunday, is expected to say that a global shift to renewable energy from fossil fuels like oil and coal are required to avoid potentially devastating sea level rise, flooding, droughts and other impacts of warming.
Global warming dials up our risks, UN report says
The report on mitigating climate change was the third of the IPCC's four-part assessment on climate change, its first since 2007.
Swedish environmental economist Thomas Sterner, a lead author of one of the chapters in the report, said the IPCC process can be frustrating to scientists. "There's a fight over every comma sign," he told AP. In a blog post from Berlin he said scientists addressing the meeting were told to "Keep our statements short and concise, avoid jargon, do not lecture the delegates, do not become emotional."
Chris Field, who co-chaired another IPCC session in Japan last month and sits on the panel's executive committee but did not have a direct role in the Berlin session, said one way to think about the process is that scientists have control of a two-way valve and can move findings into or out of the summary for policy-makers. The governments have a one-way valve and can only move things out of the document.
"The role of this one-way valve is important in thinking about why the findings of the IPCC always feel so measured and carefully couched," he said.
Many of the government interventions are "incredibly helpful" in making the text clearer, he added. "It is a pretty amazing process. But some of the interventions are not quite as time efficient."
© The Associated Press, 2014
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/un-climate-change-guidelines-to-balance-science-and-politics-1.2608022?cmp=rss
Climate panel calls for ‘enlightenment’
April 8 2014 at 09:28am
By Frank Jordans
Berlin - The head of the United Nations scientific panel on climate change urged diplomats and scientists to show “enlightenment” on Monday, as they began a weeklong meeting aimed at spelling out in plain terms what options the world has if it wants to prevent catastrophic global warming. Delegates at the closed-doors meeting in Berlin need to tackle a number of sensitive issues, including how best to cut carbon emissions and how to share the cost of shifting away from the fossil fuels that are largely blamed for producing the gases that are heating the planet. Their conclusions will feed into a landmark assessment report that will form the basis of negotiations for future climate treaties.
“I would urge the distinguished delegates to exercise a high level of enlightenment,” said Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “The world needs a robust, policy-relevant and informative document.”
Experts say that in order to keep global temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) by the end of the century, greenhouse gas emissions will have to be cut by 40 percent to 70 percent by 2050. But there are sharp differences between nations over how to achieve this and who will pay for it. Even the language used to describe the billions of dollars that need to be pumped into climate mitigation efforts has become political, with environmental campaigners favouring the term 'investment' to reflect the long-term return they say can be achieved by switching to clean energy sources.
“Talking about costs is toxic because you don't look at the benefits,” said Jan Kowalzig, a climate policy expert at the campaign group, Oxfam.
A new report released on Monday showed that renewable energy, excluding large hydropower plants, increased its share of overall power generation worldwide from 7.8 percent in 2012 to 8.5 percent last year. Since 2006, some $1.5-trillion has been invested in renewable energy. But uncertainty about future global energy policy - as well as declining cost of solar power systems - meant the total amount invested in renewables fell by $35.1-billion to $214.4-billion, according to the Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment report released by the UN Environment Program.
http://www.iol.co.za/scitech/science/environment/climate-panel-calls-for-enlightenment-1.1672638#.U0RaR_n4bGA
“I would urge the distinguished delegates to exercise a high level of enlightenment,” said Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “The world needs a robust, policy-relevant and informative document.”
Experts say that in order to keep global temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) by the end of the century, greenhouse gas emissions will have to be cut by 40 percent to 70 percent by 2050. But there are sharp differences between nations over how to achieve this and who will pay for it. Even the language used to describe the billions of dollars that need to be pumped into climate mitigation efforts has become political, with environmental campaigners favouring the term 'investment' to reflect the long-term return they say can be achieved by switching to clean energy sources.
“Talking about costs is toxic because you don't look at the benefits,” said Jan Kowalzig, a climate policy expert at the campaign group, Oxfam.
A new report released on Monday showed that renewable energy, excluding large hydropower plants, increased its share of overall power generation worldwide from 7.8 percent in 2012 to 8.5 percent last year. Since 2006, some $1.5-trillion has been invested in renewable energy. But uncertainty about future global energy policy - as well as declining cost of solar power systems - meant the total amount invested in renewables fell by $35.1-billion to $214.4-billion, according to the Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment report released by the UN Environment Program.
http://www.iol.co.za/scitech/science/environment/climate-panel-calls-for-enlightenment-1.1672638#.U0RaR_n4bGA
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the international body for assessing the science related to climate change. It was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme to provide policymakers with regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation. Working Group III, which assesses the mitigation of climate change, is co-chaired by Ottmar Edenhofer of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany, Ramón Pichs-Madruga of the Centre for World Economy Studies of Havana, Cuba, and Youba Sokona, of the South Centre, Geneva, Switzerland.
The Technical Support Unit of Working Group III is hosted by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and funded by the Government of Germany. At the 28th Session of the IPCC held in April 2008, the members of the IPCC decided to prepare a Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). A Scoping Meeting was convened in July 2009 to develop the scope and outline of the AR5. The resulting outlines for the three Working Group contributions to the AR5 were approved at the 31st Session of the IPCC in October 2009.
A total of 235 coordinating lead authors and lead authors and 38 review editors, from 57 countries, were selected to produce the Working Group III report. They enlisted the help of close to 200 contributing authors. More than 800 expert reviewers provided comments to earlier drafts of the report. In total, more than 38,000 review comments have been considered for the WGIII contribution. For the Fifth Assessment Report as a whole, a total of 832 authors and review editors were selected.
The Working Group III report consists of a Summary for Policymakers, Technical Summary, 16 chapters looking at framing issues, pathways for mitigating climate change and assessments of policies, institutions and finance, and three annexes.
IPCC PRESS RELEASE
7 April 2014
IPCC starts meeting to finalize Working Group III report
BERLIN, 7 April – Government representatives and scientists opened a five-day meeting on Monday of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to finalize a report assessing the options for mitigating climate change, and the underlying technical, economic and institutional requirements.
The meeting is the culmination of four years’ work by hundreds of experts who have volunteered their time and expertise to produce a comprehensive assessment. The IPCC member governments are gathering to approve the Summary for Policymakers of the third part of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), checking the text line by line. They will also accept the full report, which besides the Summary of Policymakers consists of a Technical Summary, 16 chapters and three
annexes.
The Working Group III contribution to the AR5 deals with the mitigation of climate change. It sets out the technological, economic and institutional requirements and associated risks of climate change policies at the global, national and sub-national level, investigates mitigation measures for all major sectors, and assesses investment and finance issues. The first contribution, by Working Group I, dealing with the physical science basis of climate change, was finalized in September 2013, with the full report published at the end of January 2014. The Working Group II contribution, assessing impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, was finalized in March this year.
The Fifth Assessment Report will be completed by a Synthesis Report in October. “Preventing dangerous interference with the climate system entails mitigating climate change,” said Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chair of Working Group III. “On a transparent scientific basis, our report provides an understanding of the available options to meet this challenge.” The meeting, hosted by the Government of Germany, runs from 7 to 11 April 2014. The Summary for Policymakers is due to be released on Sunday 13 April. The full report will also be released within two days, published online in September, and in book form a few months later.
“The approval process puts our report under close scrutiny. It ensures that our report presents state of the art research in a language and format that policymakers can use,” said Ramón Pichs-Madruga, one of the other Co-Chairs of Working Group III. “In the Plenary, all countries can voice their concerns and all of them are heard. In the end, it is scientific accuracy that decides”, added Youba Sokona, Co-Chair of Working Group III. The report builds on previous IPCC reports and assesses the wealth of literature on climate change mitigation that has emerged since the publication of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report in 2007.
IPCC Press Office, Email: [email protected]
Jonathan Lynn, + 49 30 6831 30241 or Nina Peeva, + 49 160 9941 0967
IPCC Working Group III Media Contact, Email: [email protected]
Patrick Eickemeier, +49 331 288 24 30
IPCC PRESS RELEASE Document 140407_pr_WGIII_opening.pdf
http://www.ipcc.ch
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the international body for assessing the science related to climate change. It was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme to provide policymakers with regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation. Working Group III, which assesses the mitigation of climate change, is co-chaired by Ottmar Edenhofer of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany, Ramón Pichs-Madruga of the Centre for World Economy Studies of Havana, Cuba, and Youba Sokona, of the South Centre, Geneva, Switzerland.
The Technical Support Unit of Working Group III is hosted by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and funded by the Government of Germany. At the 28th Session of the IPCC held in April 2008, the members of the IPCC decided to prepare a Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). A Scoping Meeting was convened in July 2009 to develop the scope and outline of the AR5. The resulting outlines for the three Working Group contributions to the AR5 were approved at the 31st Session of the IPCC in October 2009.
A total of 235 coordinating lead authors and lead authors and 38 review editors, from 57 countries, were selected to produce the Working Group III report. They enlisted the help of close to 200 contributing authors. More than 800 expert reviewers provided comments to earlier drafts of the report. In total, more than 38,000 review comments have been considered for the WGIII contribution. For the Fifth Assessment Report as a whole, a total of 832 authors and review editors were selected.
The Working Group III report consists of a Summary for Policymakers, Technical Summary, 16 chapters looking at framing issues, pathways for mitigating climate change and assessments of policies, institutions and finance, and three annexes.
IPCC PRESS RELEASE
7 April 2014
IPCC starts meeting to finalize Working Group III report
BERLIN, 7 April – Government representatives and scientists opened a five-day meeting on Monday of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to finalize a report assessing the options for mitigating climate change, and the underlying technical, economic and institutional requirements.
The meeting is the culmination of four years’ work by hundreds of experts who have volunteered their time and expertise to produce a comprehensive assessment. The IPCC member governments are gathering to approve the Summary for Policymakers of the third part of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), checking the text line by line. They will also accept the full report, which besides the Summary of Policymakers consists of a Technical Summary, 16 chapters and three
annexes.
The Working Group III contribution to the AR5 deals with the mitigation of climate change. It sets out the technological, economic and institutional requirements and associated risks of climate change policies at the global, national and sub-national level, investigates mitigation measures for all major sectors, and assesses investment and finance issues. The first contribution, by Working Group I, dealing with the physical science basis of climate change, was finalized in September 2013, with the full report published at the end of January 2014. The Working Group II contribution, assessing impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, was finalized in March this year.
The Fifth Assessment Report will be completed by a Synthesis Report in October. “Preventing dangerous interference with the climate system entails mitigating climate change,” said Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chair of Working Group III. “On a transparent scientific basis, our report provides an understanding of the available options to meet this challenge.” The meeting, hosted by the Government of Germany, runs from 7 to 11 April 2014. The Summary for Policymakers is due to be released on Sunday 13 April. The full report will also be released within two days, published online in September, and in book form a few months later.
“The approval process puts our report under close scrutiny. It ensures that our report presents state of the art research in a language and format that policymakers can use,” said Ramón Pichs-Madruga, one of the other Co-Chairs of Working Group III. “In the Plenary, all countries can voice their concerns and all of them are heard. In the end, it is scientific accuracy that decides”, added Youba Sokona, Co-Chair of Working Group III. The report builds on previous IPCC reports and assesses the wealth of literature on climate change mitigation that has emerged since the publication of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report in 2007.
IPCC Press Office, Email: [email protected]
Jonathan Lynn, + 49 30 6831 30241 or Nina Peeva, + 49 160 9941 0967
IPCC Working Group III Media Contact, Email: [email protected]
Patrick Eickemeier, +49 331 288 24 30
IPCC PRESS RELEASE Document 140407_pr_WGIII_opening.pdf
http://www.ipcc.ch
Time running out to meet global warming target
U.N. report BY ALISTER DOYLE, ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT
OSLO Sun Apr 6, 2014 12:00pm BST
Photo: AP Giant machines dig for brown coal at the open-cast mining Garzweiler near the city of Grevenbroich, western Germany.
(Reuters) - World powers are running out of time to slash their use of high-polluting fossil fuels and stay below agreed limits on global warming, a draft U.N. study to be approved this week shows. Government officials and top climate scientists will meet in Berlin from April 7-12 to review the 29-page draft that also estimates the needed shift to low-carbon energies would cost between two and six percent of world output by 2050. It says nations will have to impose drastic curbs on their still rising greenhouse gas emissions to keep a promise made by almost 200 countries in 2010 to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times.
Temperatures have already risen by about 0.8 C (1.4F) since 1900 and are set to breach the 2 C ceiling on current trends in coming decades, U.N. reports show. "The window is shutting very rapidly on the 2 degrees target," said Johan Rockstrom, head of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and an expert on risks to the planet from heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising seas. "The debate is drifting to 'maybe we can adapt to 2 degrees, maybe 3 or even 4'," Rockstrom, who was not among authors of the draft, told Reuters. Such rises would sharply raise risks to food and water supplies and could trigger irreversible damage, such as a meltdown of Greenland's ice, according to U.N. reports.
The draft, seen by Reuters, outlines ways to cut emissions and boost low-carbon energy, which includes renewables such as wind, hydro- and solar power, nuclear power and "clean" fossil fuels, whose carbon emissions are captured and buried.
It said such low-carbon sources accounted for 17 percent of the world's total energy supplies in 2010 and their share would have to triple - to 51 percent - or quadruple by 2050, according to most scenarios reviewed. That would displace high polluting fossil fuels as the world's main energy source by mid-century.
CARBON CAPTURE
Saskatchewan Power in Canada will open a $1.35 billion (813.98 million pounds) coal-fired electricity generating plant this year that will extract a million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year from its exhaust gases - the first carbon capture and storage plant of its type. Reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the group meeting in Berlin, will help governments, which aim to agree a deal to slow climate change at a Paris summit in December 2015. Few nations have outlined plans consistent with staying below 2 degrees C.
Another report by the IPCC last week in Japan showed warming already affects every continent and would damage food and water supplies and slow economic growth. It may already be having irreversible impacts on the Arctic and coral reefs.
The new draft shows that getting on track to meet the 2C goal would mean limiting greenhouse gas emissions to between 30 and 50 billion tonnes in 2030, a radical shift after a surge to 49 billion tonnes in 2010 from 38 billion in 1990.
The shift would reduce economic output by between 2-6 percent by 2050, because of the costs of building a cleaner energy system based on low-carbon energies that are more expensive than abundant coal, the IPCC said. Capturing carbon dioxide is also expensive, it added.
China and the United States are the top emitters.
One option is to let temperatures overshoot the 2C target while developing technology to cool the planet by extracting greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, the draft says. The draft that would add to risks of warming and push up costs.
Extracting carbon from nature includes simple measures such as planting more trees, which soak up carbon as they grow, or capturing and burying greenhouse gases from electricity-generating plants that burn wood or other plant matter.
A problem is that markets for trading carbon dioxide focus on cuts in emissions at power plants and factories burning fossil fuels, not renewable energies which are viewed as green. "In Europe there is no incentive" said Jonas Helseth, director of environmental group Bellona Europe who chairs a group of scientists and industry experts looking at burying emissions from renewable energy.
The IPCC draft report is the third and final study in a U.N. series about climate change, updating findings from 2007, after the Japan report about the impacts and one in September in Sweden about climate science. The September report raised the probability that human actions, led by the use of fossil fuels, are the main cause of climate change since 1950 to at least 95 percent from 90. But opinion polls show voters are unpersuaded, with many believing that natural variations are the main cause.
(Reporting By Alister Doyle; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/04/06/uk-climate-un-idUKBREA3506A20140406?feed&feedName=worldNews&rpc=477
(Reuters) - World powers are running out of time to slash their use of high-polluting fossil fuels and stay below agreed limits on global warming, a draft U.N. study to be approved this week shows. Government officials and top climate scientists will meet in Berlin from April 7-12 to review the 29-page draft that also estimates the needed shift to low-carbon energies would cost between two and six percent of world output by 2050. It says nations will have to impose drastic curbs on their still rising greenhouse gas emissions to keep a promise made by almost 200 countries in 2010 to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times.
Temperatures have already risen by about 0.8 C (1.4F) since 1900 and are set to breach the 2 C ceiling on current trends in coming decades, U.N. reports show. "The window is shutting very rapidly on the 2 degrees target," said Johan Rockstrom, head of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and an expert on risks to the planet from heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising seas. "The debate is drifting to 'maybe we can adapt to 2 degrees, maybe 3 or even 4'," Rockstrom, who was not among authors of the draft, told Reuters. Such rises would sharply raise risks to food and water supplies and could trigger irreversible damage, such as a meltdown of Greenland's ice, according to U.N. reports.
The draft, seen by Reuters, outlines ways to cut emissions and boost low-carbon energy, which includes renewables such as wind, hydro- and solar power, nuclear power and "clean" fossil fuels, whose carbon emissions are captured and buried.
It said such low-carbon sources accounted for 17 percent of the world's total energy supplies in 2010 and their share would have to triple - to 51 percent - or quadruple by 2050, according to most scenarios reviewed. That would displace high polluting fossil fuels as the world's main energy source by mid-century.
CARBON CAPTURE
Saskatchewan Power in Canada will open a $1.35 billion (813.98 million pounds) coal-fired electricity generating plant this year that will extract a million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year from its exhaust gases - the first carbon capture and storage plant of its type. Reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the group meeting in Berlin, will help governments, which aim to agree a deal to slow climate change at a Paris summit in December 2015. Few nations have outlined plans consistent with staying below 2 degrees C.
Another report by the IPCC last week in Japan showed warming already affects every continent and would damage food and water supplies and slow economic growth. It may already be having irreversible impacts on the Arctic and coral reefs.
The new draft shows that getting on track to meet the 2C goal would mean limiting greenhouse gas emissions to between 30 and 50 billion tonnes in 2030, a radical shift after a surge to 49 billion tonnes in 2010 from 38 billion in 1990.
The shift would reduce economic output by between 2-6 percent by 2050, because of the costs of building a cleaner energy system based on low-carbon energies that are more expensive than abundant coal, the IPCC said. Capturing carbon dioxide is also expensive, it added.
China and the United States are the top emitters.
One option is to let temperatures overshoot the 2C target while developing technology to cool the planet by extracting greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, the draft says. The draft that would add to risks of warming and push up costs.
Extracting carbon from nature includes simple measures such as planting more trees, which soak up carbon as they grow, or capturing and burying greenhouse gases from electricity-generating plants that burn wood or other plant matter.
A problem is that markets for trading carbon dioxide focus on cuts in emissions at power plants and factories burning fossil fuels, not renewable energies which are viewed as green. "In Europe there is no incentive" said Jonas Helseth, director of environmental group Bellona Europe who chairs a group of scientists and industry experts looking at burying emissions from renewable energy.
The IPCC draft report is the third and final study in a U.N. series about climate change, updating findings from 2007, after the Japan report about the impacts and one in September in Sweden about climate science. The September report raised the probability that human actions, led by the use of fossil fuels, are the main cause of climate change since 1950 to at least 95 percent from 90. But opinion polls show voters are unpersuaded, with many believing that natural variations are the main cause.
(Reporting By Alister Doyle; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/04/06/uk-climate-un-idUKBREA3506A20140406?feed&feedName=worldNews&rpc=477
Climate meeting to discuss future of fossil fuels
Sci/Tech April 05, 2014
Sci/Tech April 05, 2014
Photo: AP A wind turbine is pictured in the in front of a steaming coal power plant in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. After concluding that global warming is almost certainly man-made and poses a grave threat to humanity, the U.N.-sponsored expert panel on climate change is moving on to the next phase: what to do about it. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, will meet next week in Berlin to chart ways in which the world can curb the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are overheating the planet.
BERLIN (AP) — After concluding that global warming almost certainly is man-made and poses a grave threat to humanity, the U.N.-sponsored expert panel on climate change is moving on to the next phase: what to do about it. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, will meet next week in Berlin to chart ways in which the world can curb the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are overheating the planet. It is also trying to give estimates on what it would cost. In the third report of a landmark climate assessment, the IPCC is expected to say that to keep warming in check, the world needs a major shift in investments from fossil fuels — the principal source of man-made carbon emissions — to renewable energy.
"Underlying this report is a lot of technical analysis of the different solutions, for example wind energy, solar, better energy efficiency and what is the cost of that," said Jake Schmidt, international climate policy director at the National Resources Defense Council, a Washington-based environmental group. "And there will also be some discussions of how deep global cuts are needed to put us onto these different climate trajectories."
A leaked draft of the report sent to governments in December suggests that in order to keep global temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) by the end of the century — the stated goal of international climate talks — emissions need to fall by 40-70 percent by 2050.
Investments in fossil fuels such as oil and coal would have to drop by $30 billion a year, while spending on renewables would have to go up by $147 billion annually, according to the draft. That message is likely to face opposition from the fossil fuel industry and countries that depend on it. Earlier this week, Exxon Mobile said the world's climate policies are "highly unlikely" to stop it from selling fossil fuels far into the future. That contrasted with a message from U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres, who told oil and gas industry officials in London on Thursday that three-quarters of the fossil fuel reserves still in the ground needs to stay there for the world to achieve the 2-degree target. "We must look past the next quarter, past the end of the decade, into the second half of the century by which time the global economy must be carbon neutral," Figueres said. The alternative plan to mitigate climate change would involve coming up with new ways to scrub carbon out of the atmosphere or prevent too much sunlight from being trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases.
Known as geoengineering, ideas floated from time to time include dropping tons of iron into the ocean to make carbon-munching algae bloom or putting an umbrella in space to shield us from the sun. Many scientists and campaigners believe such ideas are unlikely to work. "My own scientific point of view is that it's too dangerous," said Bill Hare, lead author of the IPCC's 2007 report on mitigation. "It's got to be assessed though. You can't just ignore it." Opponents say possible disastrous side effects from geoengineering could include a change in the monsoon pattern or a widening of the ozone hole that could threaten the lives of millions.
Observers will be watching for how much attention the IPCC gives to the issue when they wrangle over the wording of the final report next week in Berlin. The draft mentions it only briefly. The two previous reports in the IPCC's first comprehensive assessment of climate since 2007 said it's 95-percent certain that climate change is man-made and highlighted the damage it is projected to inflict on economies, crops and human health. The latest report also focuses on the costs associated with keeping warming below 2 degrees C. The draft projects consumption losses of 1-4 percent by 2030. That number is highly uncertain, though, and may be changed or deleted altogether in Berlin.
Another controversial part of the report is the one dealing with who should pay for efforts to curb climate change — an issue that's at the heart of U.N. negotiations on a new global climate agreement, set to be adopted by 2015. Poor and middle-income countries say they need more help from rich countries to switch to low-carbon energy sources. The IPCC, which is a scientific body, tries to steer clear of politics, but notes that mitigation could involve financial transfers "in the order of hundreds of billions of dollars per year before mid-century."
By most measures, the West, which underwent industrialization earlier, has historically pumped more carbon into the atmosphere than newly emerging economies such as China, which has the world's highest carbon emissions.
"The main bone of contention will be how the cost is factored and how it's shared across the world," said Schmidt, of the National Resources Defense Council. "We're making decisions now that are building out our potential carbon infrastructure for decades. You can turn some of that off but there's a cost and implication for society in the future."
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: http://www.ipcc.ch
Frank Jordans can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/wirereporter
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2014-04-05/climate-meeting-to-discuss-future-of-fossil-fuels
BERLIN (AP) — After concluding that global warming almost certainly is man-made and poses a grave threat to humanity, the U.N.-sponsored expert panel on climate change is moving on to the next phase: what to do about it. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, will meet next week in Berlin to chart ways in which the world can curb the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are overheating the planet. It is also trying to give estimates on what it would cost. In the third report of a landmark climate assessment, the IPCC is expected to say that to keep warming in check, the world needs a major shift in investments from fossil fuels — the principal source of man-made carbon emissions — to renewable energy.
"Underlying this report is a lot of technical analysis of the different solutions, for example wind energy, solar, better energy efficiency and what is the cost of that," said Jake Schmidt, international climate policy director at the National Resources Defense Council, a Washington-based environmental group. "And there will also be some discussions of how deep global cuts are needed to put us onto these different climate trajectories."
A leaked draft of the report sent to governments in December suggests that in order to keep global temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) by the end of the century — the stated goal of international climate talks — emissions need to fall by 40-70 percent by 2050.
Investments in fossil fuels such as oil and coal would have to drop by $30 billion a year, while spending on renewables would have to go up by $147 billion annually, according to the draft. That message is likely to face opposition from the fossil fuel industry and countries that depend on it. Earlier this week, Exxon Mobile said the world's climate policies are "highly unlikely" to stop it from selling fossil fuels far into the future. That contrasted with a message from U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres, who told oil and gas industry officials in London on Thursday that three-quarters of the fossil fuel reserves still in the ground needs to stay there for the world to achieve the 2-degree target. "We must look past the next quarter, past the end of the decade, into the second half of the century by which time the global economy must be carbon neutral," Figueres said. The alternative plan to mitigate climate change would involve coming up with new ways to scrub carbon out of the atmosphere or prevent too much sunlight from being trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases.
Known as geoengineering, ideas floated from time to time include dropping tons of iron into the ocean to make carbon-munching algae bloom or putting an umbrella in space to shield us from the sun. Many scientists and campaigners believe such ideas are unlikely to work. "My own scientific point of view is that it's too dangerous," said Bill Hare, lead author of the IPCC's 2007 report on mitigation. "It's got to be assessed though. You can't just ignore it." Opponents say possible disastrous side effects from geoengineering could include a change in the monsoon pattern or a widening of the ozone hole that could threaten the lives of millions.
Observers will be watching for how much attention the IPCC gives to the issue when they wrangle over the wording of the final report next week in Berlin. The draft mentions it only briefly. The two previous reports in the IPCC's first comprehensive assessment of climate since 2007 said it's 95-percent certain that climate change is man-made and highlighted the damage it is projected to inflict on economies, crops and human health. The latest report also focuses on the costs associated with keeping warming below 2 degrees C. The draft projects consumption losses of 1-4 percent by 2030. That number is highly uncertain, though, and may be changed or deleted altogether in Berlin.
Another controversial part of the report is the one dealing with who should pay for efforts to curb climate change — an issue that's at the heart of U.N. negotiations on a new global climate agreement, set to be adopted by 2015. Poor and middle-income countries say they need more help from rich countries to switch to low-carbon energy sources. The IPCC, which is a scientific body, tries to steer clear of politics, but notes that mitigation could involve financial transfers "in the order of hundreds of billions of dollars per year before mid-century."
By most measures, the West, which underwent industrialization earlier, has historically pumped more carbon into the atmosphere than newly emerging economies such as China, which has the world's highest carbon emissions.
"The main bone of contention will be how the cost is factored and how it's shared across the world," said Schmidt, of the National Resources Defense Council. "We're making decisions now that are building out our potential carbon infrastructure for decades. You can turn some of that off but there's a cost and implication for society in the future."
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: http://www.ipcc.ch
Frank Jordans can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/wirereporter
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2014-04-05/climate-meeting-to-discuss-future-of-fossil-fuels
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
30 January 2014
Headline Statements from the Summary for Policymakers *
Observed Changes in the Climate SystemWarming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased.
Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850. In the Northern Hemisphere, 1983–2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years (medium confidence).
Ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010 (high confidence). It is virtually certain that the upper ocean (0–700 m) warmed from 1971 to 2010, and it likely warmed between the 1870s and 1971.
Over the last two decades, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing mass, glaciers have continued to shrink almost worldwide, and Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover have continued to decrease in extent (high confidence). The rate of sea level rise since the mid-19th century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous two millennia (high confidence). Over the period 1901 to 2010, global mean sea level rose by 0.19 [0.17 to 0.21] m. The atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. Carbon dioxide concentrations have increased by 40% since pre-industrial times, primarily
from fossil fuel emissions and secondarily from net land use change emissions. The ocean has absorbed about 30% of the
emitted anthropogenic carbon dioxide, causing ocean acidification.
Drivers of Climate Change
Total radiative forcing is positive, and has led to an uptake of energy by the climate system. The largest contribution to total
radiative forcing is caused by the increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 since 1750.
Understanding the Climate System and its Recent Changes
Human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident from the increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the
atmosphere, positive radiative forcing, observed warming, and understanding of the climate system. Understanding the Climate System and its Recent Changes Climate models have improved since the AR4. Models reproduce observed continental-scale surface temperature patterns and trends over many decades, including the more rapid warming since the mid-20th century and the cooling immediately following large volcanic eruptions (very high confidence).
Observational and model studies of temperature change, climate feedbacks and changes in the Earth’s energy budget together provide confidence in the magnitude of global warming in response to past and future forcing.
Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes. This evidence for human influence has grown since AR4. It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. Future Global and Regional Climate Change Global surface temperature change for the end of the 21st century is likely to exceed 1.5°C relative to 1850 to 1900 for all RCP scenarios except RCP2.6. It is likely to exceed 2°C for RCP6.0 and RCP8.5, and more likely than not to exceed 2°C for RCP4.5. Warming will continue beyond 2100 under all RCP scenarios except RCP2.6. Warming will continue to exhibit interannual-to-decadal variability and will not be regionally uniform.
Changes in the global water cycle in response to the warming over the 21st century will not be uniform. The contrast in precipitation between wet and dry regions and between wet and dry seasons will increase, although there may be regional exceptions. The global ocean will continue to warm during the 21st century. Heat will penetrate from the surface to the deep ocean and affect ocean circulation. It is very likely that the Arctic sea ice cover will continue to shrink and thin and that Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover will decrease during the 21st century as global mean surface temperature rises. Global glacier volume will further decrease. Global mean sea level will continue to rise during the 21st century. Under all RCP scenarios, the rate of sea level rise will very likely exceed that observed during 1971 to 2010 due to increased ocean warming and increased loss of mass from glaciers and ice sheets.
Climate change will affect carbon cycle processes in a way that will exacerbate the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere (high confidence). Further uptake of carbon by the ocean will increase ocean acidification. Cumulative emissions of CO2 largely determine global mean surface warming by the late 21st century and beyond. Most aspects of climate change will persist for many centuries even if emissions of CO2 are stopped. This represents a substantial multi-century climate change commitment created by past, present and future emissions of CO2.
WGI Technical Support Unit c/o University of Bern
Zaehringerstrasse 25 3012 Bern Switzerland
telephone +41 31 631 5616 fax +41 31 631 5615 email [email protected]
Document WG1AR5_Headlines. pdf
www.climatechange2013.org
30 January 2014
Headline Statements from the Summary for Policymakers *
Observed Changes in the Climate SystemWarming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased.
Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850. In the Northern Hemisphere, 1983–2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years (medium confidence).
Ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010 (high confidence). It is virtually certain that the upper ocean (0–700 m) warmed from 1971 to 2010, and it likely warmed between the 1870s and 1971.
Over the last two decades, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing mass, glaciers have continued to shrink almost worldwide, and Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover have continued to decrease in extent (high confidence). The rate of sea level rise since the mid-19th century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous two millennia (high confidence). Over the period 1901 to 2010, global mean sea level rose by 0.19 [0.17 to 0.21] m. The atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. Carbon dioxide concentrations have increased by 40% since pre-industrial times, primarily
from fossil fuel emissions and secondarily from net land use change emissions. The ocean has absorbed about 30% of the
emitted anthropogenic carbon dioxide, causing ocean acidification.
Drivers of Climate Change
Total radiative forcing is positive, and has led to an uptake of energy by the climate system. The largest contribution to total
radiative forcing is caused by the increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 since 1750.
Understanding the Climate System and its Recent Changes
Human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident from the increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the
atmosphere, positive radiative forcing, observed warming, and understanding of the climate system. Understanding the Climate System and its Recent Changes Climate models have improved since the AR4. Models reproduce observed continental-scale surface temperature patterns and trends over many decades, including the more rapid warming since the mid-20th century and the cooling immediately following large volcanic eruptions (very high confidence).
Observational and model studies of temperature change, climate feedbacks and changes in the Earth’s energy budget together provide confidence in the magnitude of global warming in response to past and future forcing.
Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes. This evidence for human influence has grown since AR4. It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. Future Global and Regional Climate Change Global surface temperature change for the end of the 21st century is likely to exceed 1.5°C relative to 1850 to 1900 for all RCP scenarios except RCP2.6. It is likely to exceed 2°C for RCP6.0 and RCP8.5, and more likely than not to exceed 2°C for RCP4.5. Warming will continue beyond 2100 under all RCP scenarios except RCP2.6. Warming will continue to exhibit interannual-to-decadal variability and will not be regionally uniform.
Changes in the global water cycle in response to the warming over the 21st century will not be uniform. The contrast in precipitation between wet and dry regions and between wet and dry seasons will increase, although there may be regional exceptions. The global ocean will continue to warm during the 21st century. Heat will penetrate from the surface to the deep ocean and affect ocean circulation. It is very likely that the Arctic sea ice cover will continue to shrink and thin and that Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover will decrease during the 21st century as global mean surface temperature rises. Global glacier volume will further decrease. Global mean sea level will continue to rise during the 21st century. Under all RCP scenarios, the rate of sea level rise will very likely exceed that observed during 1971 to 2010 due to increased ocean warming and increased loss of mass from glaciers and ice sheets.
Climate change will affect carbon cycle processes in a way that will exacerbate the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere (high confidence). Further uptake of carbon by the ocean will increase ocean acidification. Cumulative emissions of CO2 largely determine global mean surface warming by the late 21st century and beyond. Most aspects of climate change will persist for many centuries even if emissions of CO2 are stopped. This represents a substantial multi-century climate change commitment created by past, present and future emissions of CO2.
WGI Technical Support Unit c/o University of Bern
Zaehringerstrasse 25 3012 Bern Switzerland
telephone +41 31 631 5616 fax +41 31 631 5615 email [email protected]
Document WG1AR5_Headlines. pdf
www.climatechange2013.org