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Climate Change blamed on Humans

Human activities are to blame for Climate Change, according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Global temperature increases of 3-4 degrees Celsius are expected before the end of this century and Greenhouse Gas emissions responsible for most of the warming.

Last night, the lights of the Eiffel Tower were switched off for 15 minutes as a gesture towards the effort required to avert climate change. Nearby, a conference was going on in the city for the unveiling of a report on the predicted extent of climate change by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of leading scientists.

Over 2500 scientific expert reviewers, over 800 contributing authors and 450 lead authors produced the report by the IPCC. It involved individuals from over 130 countries, compiled over 6 years.

The first report on Climate Change was presented today (Friday, 2nd February 2007) by the IPCC, which is part of the United Nations. It has warned that global warming before the end of the century has been conservatively estimated at 3-4 degrees Celsius, but that it may be as much as 6 degrees. The IPCC has also gone as far as saying that they are 90% sure that human activity is to blame. Privately, many of the authors are even more certain than that.

Speaking at the IPCC conference in Paris, Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), said:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the 2nd February 2007, here in Paris, will perhaps one day be remembered as the day when the question mark was removed behind the debate about whether climate change had anything to do with human activity on this planet."

"This is the key message of this report: It is an unequivocal set of pieces of evidence that have been put before the world about how fossil fuel use, agriculture use and land use change are fundamentally affecting the systems on our planet."

"A cold shiver runs down your back because you begin to understand that for the first time in human existence, we are affecting the systems that run our planet. It is frightening."

Even the predicted best-case scenarios of the effects of Global Warming spell out a warmer, more turbulent climate in the future. Kevin Trenberth, a lead author of the report, described some of the effects we have already seen take place to indicate that Global Warming and Climate Change is already well underway:

"The melting of glaciers, the rising of sea level which integrates all these things together, changes in storms, changes in rainfall patterns, increases in drought; all of this is now unequivocally showing that the planet is warming and what is more, we can now say that humans are the main cause of this."

Speaking to BBC News, Peter Stott of the UK's meteorological office described the effects of Climate Change that might be experienced in the UK:

"It will mean more extreme weather and more heat waves. We've already seen that the frequency and duration of heat waves has increased. There will be a tendency for wetter winters. There will be longer periods of drought in the summertime and more risk of flooding in the wintertime. Parts of England will be become like parts of Spain."

"The world is facing a range of more severe weather that it will have to adapt to."

It has emerged that the language of the report has been toned down at the request of some countries. One of the lead authors of the report, Philip Jones of the University of East Anglia said:

"It's a consensus report so we had to come to some sort of compromise on various issues."

"The Americans were fairly easy about most things; It did come as a surprise to a few. The Chinese wanted slightly weaker language. Maybe Britain and the Germans and the French wanted a stronger language, so we came to some compromise, for example, using the phrase 'very likely' that the warming we have experienced is due to man. We think (the language used) could have been 'extremely likely' rather than 'very likely'."

"We should be worried. We should be starting to take action fairly soon, because we've not got many years left. If we don't start soon it's going to take a massive effort to change our lifestyles to slow down the major rises that will take place by the end of this century."

"The major effects would be in developing countries, who have trouble coping with climate change now. They are going to find it really hard, particularly in countries like Bangladesh, India and Indonesia."

"I'd like to see governments getting together and talking seriously about significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. (The government) may not have the will to act at the moment, but it should act".