by Mary-Kate
(Coffs Harbour, Aus)
Earlier this year, the IPCC released what is the world’s most credible assessment on climate change in three underlying Working Group Reports: The physical science basis (February 2007); Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability (April 2007); Mitigation of Climate Change (May 2007). However scientists involved in writing the report said recently that it is already out of date and that its predictions are too conservative.
The sea level rise forecast is the most notably skewed. Dr. James Hansen says a more accurate forecast for 2100 is more than 5 meters without measures to reduce CO2 substantially. He, as well as many others, have said that the report was written without the very recent knowledge of glacial acceleration feedbacks that astounded the scientists with the rapidity of the melting and flow, making the report’s forecasts much too low. Consequently, the level of urgency that is understood by policy makers around the world will not be enough and the chance of slowing Global Warming catastrophically diminished.
WWF (World Wide Fund – for nature) is also pointing out that key scientific findings are missing from the official summaries and so in response has released its own versions of two recent IPCC summaries.
In its latest report, ‘What you should know; WWF summary for policymakers’, the global conservation organization has selected key findings which failed to make it into the IPCC summaries from the first two Working Group reports. WWF reports that the contrast between the uncut report and the IPCC summary released is dramatic and dangerous inspired by politic motives as the research unedited would call for deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emission. In the Working Group I Summary for Policymakers, the information cut from the report includes the increased incidence of potentially destructive hurricanes, the warming of the upper Pacific Ocean and the loss of glaciers in the European Alps. In the Working Group II Summary for Policymakers, the IPCC was pressured to keep out references to increases in water stress and more droughts and floods.
With the way that the IPCC report is put together; it’s no wonder many imperative findings have been left out. The IPCC was established to provide the decision-makers and others interested in Climate Change with an objective source of information about Climate Change. The IPCC does not conduct any research nor does it monitor climate related data. Its role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced Climate Change. Although the IPCC panel states that they are neutral and deal objectively with policy relevant scientific, technical and socio economic factors the agreements made are generally swayed towards the conservative vote due to the large amount of people on board. According to the IPCC website every sentence has to be agreed on by all within the conference. However not all persons on the IPCC board are scientists or independents, some are government and ministry officials who have pressure to reduce the hype/urgency of the information and what it could mean politically.
WWF says that this process cuts vital facts and important information from summaries, which are quoted more often than the 3000-page full report. “These working-group reports clearly laid the case for deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The summaries dilute this,” says WWF climate program director Hans Verolme.
As its best to get as much information out into the public as possible about Global Warming many believe that the dilution of these IPCC reports is acceptable. However quoting Winston Churchill “The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedient of delay are coming to a close. In its place, we are entering a period of consequences,” and the fact that the period of consequences was long ago entered without humans realising; we can no longer stand for diluted truths and half measure preventative policies. We can no longer “tread on eggshells” when it comes to Climate Change. As all studies point towards the fact that if we want to slow global warming and save our planet, the time is right now and the action taken needs to be drastic.