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  Yahoo News 6 May 07
Despite perils, UN report upbeat on climate change
by Emmanuel Angleys

Yahoo News 4 May 07
Experts say nations have means to tackle global warming
by Karl Malakunas

Nations have the money and the technology to save the world from the worst ravages of global warming, but they must start acting immediately to succeed, experts agreed on Friday.

After five days of intense negotiations, the experts from 120 nations endorsed a report laying out proposals to fight climate change which they said were cheap and easy enough for political leaders to act on right away.

"If we continue to do what we are doing now, we are in deep trouble," said Ogunlade Davidson, co-chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which produced the report.

"This report is all about solutions to climate change," Davidson said, emphasising that the way forward was about doing things differently rather than sacrifice.

The options laid out covered simple measures like switching to energy efficient light bulbs and adjusting the thermostat in the office. But they also included extremely controversial and complex techniques such as nuclear power, and the storing of carbon dioxide -- the major greenhouse gas -- underground instead of letting it spew into the atmosphere. Renewable energies, such as wind, solar and biofuel, were highlighted as an important part of the mix, while the experts said putting a price on using the fossil fuels that produce greenhouse gases was important.

Environmental groups hailed the report as a victory for science over politics -- after fierce debate among the delegates this week -- and said the onus was now on governments to act without delay.

"WWF believe it is a historic moment here," said Stephan Singer, a climate and energy specialist from the conservation organisation. "It has been shown for the first time that stopping climate pollution in a very ambitious way does not cost a fortune ... there is no excuse for any government to argue that it is going to cause their economy to collapse."

The IPCC report presented a best-case scenario of limiting global warming to 2.0-2.4 degrees Celsius (3.6-4.3 degrees Fahrenheit), generally recognised as the threshold when the most extreme ravages of climate change will begin.

Ramping up use of the new technologies that do not emit greenhouse gases, increasing energy efficiency and other methods to achieve this target would shave less than 0.12 percent off world economic growth each year, it said.

To keep global warming in the best-case range, nations have to make sure that greenhouse gases -- blamed for most of the world's rising temperature -- must start declining by 2015. The report said greenhouse emissions would have to be cut to between 50 and 85 percent of year 2000 levels by 2050.

The report presented other scenarios in which the cost to the economy would be less but the greenhouse gases and consequent global warming much higher.

Delegates taking part in the closed-door talks said throughout the week that, China, which fears a slowdown in its surging economic growth, had led concerns about the price of fighting global change. Despite the haggling, however, negotiators and environmental groups said the final report had not been watered down for political reasons.

"It came out much better than we thought," the WWF's Singer said. "This is a victory of science over the fossil fuel industry (and) economic sceptics."

United Nations Environment Programme Michael Williams said China had played a constructive role, and that their points were for the most part based on scientific grounds that helped improve the final report. "Most of the interventions by China were useful," Williams told AFP.

The report is the third and last from the IPCC this year, after the first two looked into the evidence and looming devastating impacts of global warming. The IPCC report also said individuals could do their part through lifestyle changes, with the co-chairs of the panel saying even discarding the tie at work so the air conditioner could be turned down in summer would help.

Yahoo News 6 May 07
Despite perils, UN report upbeat on climate change
by Emmanuel Angleys

After two grim warnings on the impact of climate change, the world's top experts were unusually upbeat in assessing ways to protect the Earth, but said that national leaders have no time to waste.

The report delivered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN's top authority on the subject which met in Bangkok last week, said humanity could at least slow global warming with existing, affordable technology.

But the experts warned that time was of the essence to ward off the most destructive effects of climate change.

"We believe that human beings are capable of reducing the problems that we may get on climate change," Ogunlade Davidson, the co-chair of the meeting, told AFP. "The only difficulty is to get the political will to do that," he said.

The report following the IPCC's Bangkok meeting was its third of the year. The first, released in Paris in February, found it highly likely that global temperatures would rise by 1.8 to 4.0 degrees Celsius (3.2 to 7.2 Farenheit) over the next century. However, it also warned that temperatures could even climb by 6.4 degrees C (11.52 F).

A second report in Brussels in April highlighted the catastrophic damage that global warming could cause, including the extinction of up to 30 percent of animal and plant life.

The first two reports offered little good news, but this one is different, said Davidson.

"The third assessment says there are possible solutions and you can do it at a reasonable cost," he said.

The options laid out covered simple measures like switching to energy efficient light bulbs and adjusting the thermostat in the office. But they also included extremely controversial and complex techniques such as nuclear power, and the storing of carbon dioxide -- the major greenhouse gas -- underground instead of letting it spew into the atmosphere.

Renewable energies, such as wind, solar and biofuel, were highlighted as an important part of the mix, while the experts said putting a price on using the fossil fuels that produce greenhouse gases was important.

The 400 delegates from some 120 countries who met last week in Bangkok were tasked with drafting a summary of their extensive research to guide policymakers in deciding how to tackle climate change.

"We will be forced to take decisions, because information about (the risks of) inaction is getting ... to many people," Davidson said.

Stephan Singer, European head of climate and energy with the World Wildlife Fund, said the report showed "for the first time that stopping climate pollution in a very ambitious way does not cost a fortune."

"There is no excuse for any government to argue that it is going to cause their economy to collapse," he said, adding that political leaders needed to be pressed to take action "starting Monday."

According to the report, taking measures to stop global temperatures from rising more than about 2.0 degrees C (3.6 F) would shave only around 0.12 percentage points off annual global economic growth in the coming decades.

Greenpeace said the report demanded a "serious political response" from world leaders. "I think that we could use many of the elements in this document" during the next round of multilateral talks on climate change, Marc Gillet, the head of the French delegation, told AFP.

Climate change is expected to be among the top priorities on the agenda when leaders of the world's most industrialised countries meet at the Group of Eight Summit in Germany in June.

EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas has already called for new talks on a climate change pact at a UN ministerial meeting set for December on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali.

European nations hope the United States and rapidly developing countries like Brazil, India and China -- which did not join the existing Kyoto Protocol on climate change -- will agree to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases under a new accord.
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