Ten years left to avert catastrophe

For the past six years, more than 2,000 scientists from around the world have been writing the most definitive and up-to-date assessment of climate change. It is the fourth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since it was set up by the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organisation in 1988.

The first volume of this assessment – called Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis – will be published today at a meeting in Paris. It will be followed later in the year by two more volumes concerned with what we can expect this century in terms of climate change effects, and what we can do to minimise the impact that those effects will have on our way of life.


It is clear from the draft version of the IPCC’s fourth assessment report on the science of climate change there is little doubt that global warming is a reality, and increases in the man-made emissions of carbon dioxide over the past 250 years are largely responsible.

There are still many uncertainties surrounding the issue of climate change, but these uncertainties should not be allowed to cloud the facts. The first is that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and increases in average global temperatures are higher than at any time over the past 650,000 years – and we know one can exacerbate the other.

Independent