TalkClimateChange

Two letters were written by two sets of credible scientists last week and addressed to the UN. One letter urged action to combat global warming by reducing Co2 emissions, and the other urged leaders to ignore the previous letter and focus on more pressing priorities instead. (see below for links and highlights)

It is clearly a bizarre situation: the attention of the world is being focused on preventing a global calamity through high profile summit meetings which promise to bring much change, whilst in the background the climate prophets are still arguing over the fundamental existence of a real problem in the first place.

Each week we read of new opinion polls, which alternately claim that large numbers of people either are, or are not concerned about global warming depending on who was asked. Our conclusion is that approximately 1 third of the world care deeply about the problem. Another third of the world don’t believe there is a problem, and the remaining third couldn’t care less and are too busy getting on with their lives.

So what’s going on? Have the UN together with many of the world’s governments been duped by an unprecedented scam? Have we run out of other challenging problems to deal with? Or is the whole issue becoming confused by honest people with other motives? And more importantly, what will it take to move on?

First let’s have a look at the contrasting highlights of each letter:

From: Approximately 200 leading climate scientists  - highlights:

….The amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere now far exceeds the natural range of the past 650,000 years, and it is rising very quickly due to human activity. If this trend is not halted soon, many millions of people will be at risk from extreme events such as heat waves, drought, floods and storms, our coasts and cities will be threatened by rising sea levels, and many ecosystems, plants and animal species will be in serious danger of extinction.

The next round of focused negotiations for a new global climate treaty (within the 1992 UNFCCC process) needs to begin in December 2007 and be completed by 2009. The prime goal of this new regime must be to limit global warming to no more than 2 ºC above the pre-industrial temperature, a limit that has already been formally adopted by the European Union and a number of other countries.

Based on current scientific understanding, this requires that global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by at least 50% below their 1990 levels by the year 2050. In the long run, greenhouse gas concentrations need to be stabilised at a level well below 450 ppm (parts per million; measured in CO2-equivalent concentration). In order to stay below 2 ºC, global emissions must peak and decline in the next 10 to 15 years, so there is no time to lose….

From: Another group of approximately 100 climate scientists - highlights:

….In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it.

Recent observations of phenomena such as glacial retreats, sea-level rise and the migration of temperature-sensitive species are not evidence for abnormal climate change, for none of these changes has been shown to lie outside the bounds of known natural variability.

The average rate of warming of 0.1 to 0. 2 degrees Celsius per decade recorded by satellites during the late 20th century falls within known natural rates of warming and cooling over the last 10,000 years….

Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives, acknowledge that today’s computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature plateau follows a late 20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling.

In stark contrast to the often repeated assertion that the science of climate change is “settled,” significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming. But because IPCC working groups were generally instructed (see http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/wg1_timetable_2006-08-14.pdf) to consider work published only through May, 2005, these important findings are not included in their reports; i.e., the IPCC assessment reports are already materially outdated.

The two letters fundamentally contradict each other: firstly on the cause of climate change - natural vs manmade -, secondly on our ability to influence climate change, and finally on the subsequent causes of human suffering - economic collapse vs environmental disaster.

Frankly, its easy for an intelligent person to go with either set of scenarios, depending on what suits you best. We suspect that for many people (our enlightened readers excepted) this is exactly how they choose their position.

But since we are talking about dramatically rearranging our world we really should try to straighten this out. We have a few suggestions as a starting point:

• The gaps in the science need to be made clear so that we can have a reasonable discussion. It does indeed seem worrying that the IPCC appear to be a little selective over the evidence that they include. We need to have a proper scientific consensus to base our discussions on, or at least be clear about the things we don’t know. Without this we offer an instant ‘Get out of jail free’ card to any nation that doesn’t want to participate.
• Everybody needs to stop manipulating statistics and cherry picking sound-bytes. For example, the two quotes “no net global warming since 1998″ and “temperature has been increasing year on year with the past 5 years being among the warmest on record” are both correct, but both fail to explain the full story. There are many who are guilty of this who should know better.
• Extremists and alarmists on both sides who predict ecological or economic catastrophes should refrain from the scare tactics, stop trying to manipulate through fear and stop trying to push other agendas.
• Politicians should state their honest intentions so that people can make real choices. For example, the UK government’s recent claim to be a leading green government whilst simultaneously expanding air travel and manipulating Co2 emissions figures means that the electorate’s opinion is anyway irrelevant since their elected leaders are not transparent about their intentions to begin with.

Until these issues can be resolved we will all be right and all be wrong at the same time. The climate change debate will remain as nothing more than entertainment for the keen observers, and a state of fear and confusion for the rest.