IPCC Report: "Mitigating Climate Change"
Today (4 May 2007) in Bangkok the IPCC (www.ipcc.ch) released its Working Group III Report, Mitigating Climate Change, the third and last report to be issued this year as part of its 4th Assessment Report.
The Summary for Policymakers and outline of the report can be downloaded at the IPCC WWW site or here:
Download ipcc_wg_iii_summary.pdf
USA Today has a good summary:
www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2007-05-03-climate-report_N.htm
The report promulgates a roadmap for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. According to USA Today the roadmap describes "an affordable arsenal of anti-warming measures that must be rushed into place to avert a disastrous spike in global temperatures."
Delegates felt that in this report, science appears to have trumped politics. The policy statement may pave the way for a stronger successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The report also said that we have the technology and resources to mitigate global warming. In fact, under the strictest scenario, the world must act by 2015 to keep the current atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration at 445 ppm (parts per million) to keep the temperatures from rising about 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F).
But even with the aformentioned "modest" rise in global temperatures, there still would be severe water shortages for perhaps 2 billion people, sea level rise threatening coastal areas, and possible extinction for 20% to 30% of the world's species. So it is still not a pretty sight.
One of the report's interesting conclusions was that the lowest targets could be reached by expending less than 3% of the global GDP by 2030. This is an interesting contrast to a UK government report last year that said unmitigated global warming could cost the world's economy 5% to 20% of global GDP each year.
The IPCC has now delivered the world a roadmap. The problem with roadmaps is that they are often left in the glove compartment.
"If you keep doing what you're doing you keep getting what you got."
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