IPCC

More current science paints an even grimmer picture

Already, there are serious reservations about the final IPCC summary for policymakers, which was released today.

The BBC leads the charge, noting that the economic models used to recommend mitigation policies aim to hold the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration at 550 parts per million (ppm). However, more recent scientific evidence suggests, and I agree, that our policies need to keep concentrations much closer to 450 ppm.

Joseph Romm Politics

Scan much?

The final IPCC WGIII report is out, but the PDF seems like a horrible scan or something — it’s almost unreadable. Anybody got a clean copy they want to send me?

David Roberts Climate & Energy

It’s done

It appears that all the haggling is done and the Working Group III report from the IPCC is ready to go. It will be formally released tomorrow. Andy Revkin has a preview, and the NYT also has a Q&A with Revkin about the all-night negotiations that just ended. More to come.

David Roberts Climate & Energy

New Monbiot piece

From "The Rich World's Policy on Greenhouse Gas Now Seems Clear: Millions Will Die," by George Monbiot:

Rich nations seeking to cut climate change have this in common: they lie. You won't find this statement in the draft of the new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was leaked to the Guardian last week. But as soon as you understand the numbers, the words form before your eyes. The governments making genuine efforts to tackle global warming are using figures they know to be false.

Read the rest.

JMG Politics

Bush is working with a much stronger consensus

One argument in defense of George W. Bush's lack of action on climate change is some variation of this: "Bill Clinton wasn't any better ... he never sent the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate."

This is true. But it also ignores one important fact.

The science of climate change has improved dramatically since the mid-'90s. In its 1995 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) summarized our knowledge about climate change by saying ...

... the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on the climate ...

This is weak brew, and given the mixed evidence connecting human activities with warming, it was not at all clear exactly how much action to address climate change was warranted.

Andrew Dessler Politics

The view from Washington

So here I am in Washington (the other one) in a homey B&B just eight blocks from the White House. I came here for a number of reasons, not the least of which is attending a conference called Climate Change and International Development (which was, by the way, recorded, and it is said that videos will be available here.) It was pretty good, and the less-public strategy meeting that followed it today (at the Friends of the Earth offices) was even better. Strategically, very little could be more important than the development folks joining the climate battle. Especially if they do something new.

There's a lot to say here, and I'll not say much of it. I'm hardly an impartial observer and it would get too messy. But I do want to make a couple of bottom line points.

Tom Athanasiou Politics

If you won’t go after them, we will

The IPCC reports are some of the most highly anticipated of 2007. An obvious sign? Within two weeks of one report's release, papers are already covering a leak from the next.

IPCC Working Group III's focus is on mitigation, meaning a fair number of policy implications can be derived from its conclusions. So here's a hint for America's auto industry: the report calls for urgent action on road pollution.

In the United States, there are 483 passenger cars per 1,000 people (EarthTrends). The world average is about 100, and few countries outnumber our car count (Australia, for example, had 492 in 1996).

Joseph Romm Culture

This time, it’s personal

(Continued from parts I and II.)

Last but not least (actually, what quite literally hits closest to home!):

North America