Latest IPCC Report - Urgent Warnings

The latest Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) report, the AR4 Synthesis Report, is issued today.

450 delegates have been working during the week on the adoption of the Synthesis Report at the 27th session of the IPCC in Valencia. The IPCC has three working groups working in different areas - I. The science of climate change, II. Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability and III. Mitigation of Climate Change. Their annual reports were published earlier and the Synthesis Report brings the whole thing together.

The early reports of what is said indicate that the synthesis offers dire warnings that we may be facing "abrupt and irreversible" changes and impacts.

Among the report's top-line conclusions are that climate change is "unequivocal", that humankind's emissions of greenhouse gases are more than 90% likely to be the main cause, and that impacts can be reduced at reasonable cost.

The synthesis summary finalised late on Friday strengthens the language of those earlier reports with a warning that climate change may bring "abrupt and irreversible" impacts.

Such impacts could include the fast melting of glaciers and species extinctions.

"Approximately 20-30% of species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperature exceed 1.5-2.5C (relative to the 1980-1999 average)," the summary concludes.

BBC

Ban Ki-moon of the UN has said that we are approaching a tipping point and there must be action now -

"We all agree. Climate change is real, and we humans are its chief cause. Yet even now, few people fully understand the gravity of the threat, or its immediacy.

"Now I believe we are on the verge of a catastrophe if we do not act."

The report is suggesting a probable temperature rise of between 1.8 and 4% and a possible rise of between 1.1 and 6.4%.

This all makes the events planned for early next month all the more important. Here, on You Tube is George Monbiot talking at the meeting in London on 8th November about the situation and the urgency of action.