Governments asked Ban Ki-moon and IPCC for external review
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Chair Rajendra Pachauri have asked the InterAcademy Council (IAC), a group of the world’s leading science academies, to review the scientific procedures of the Geneva-based IPCC. IPCC was created in 1986 but came into the limelight in 2007 when it won the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with former US Vice-president Al Gore for work on climate change. The group has come under pressure since the news surfaced in recent months that its 2007 report on climate change contained scientific errors which were not caught in the approvals and editing process.
The two men asked for the review after IPCC member governments requested it.
In a statement issued as part of a press conference in New York to announce the review, the IPCC and the Ban’s office stated that:
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Geneva-based IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), appears unready to bow to pressure to step down, if comments made to the BBC Friday 5 February are any indication.
”‘There is one mistake that occurred unfortunately, and we have clearly accepted that; we have expressed regret that it took place,’” the BBC quotes him as saying. “‘But there’s a huge volume of science over there – I mean, the IPCC’s fourth assessment report is a massive piece of work – and I think all of what we have said over there is totally valid.’”
Pachauri is in Delhi, India, for an IPCC sustainability conference.
Researchers and others in the climate change field are calling on Pachauri to accept personal responsibility for a significant error that was part of a recent IPCC report on climate change, which stated incorrectly that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035.
US President Barack Obama said in his first State of the Union address, the annual presidential speech, that a top priority now is to see more jobs created, insisting that he wants to see a jobs bill from Congress soon. He also made it clear that his liberal agenda remains firmly in place, led by the drive for healthcare reform and climate-change legislation.
Links to other sites: BBC, The Globe & Mail, Canada, New York Times, NPR
Lumding Himalaya. Photos by photographer Jef Maion. www.maion.com
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Himalayan glaciers are under threat to melt by 2035, according to a widely-read scientific report on the state of the world’s climate. This has now been revealed to be inaccurate, after news organizations, including the BBC, pointed out the error. The report was produced by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The report contains “poorly substantiated estimates of rate of recession and date for the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers”, according to the IPCC website 20 January.
WMO says temperatures up, also calls for drought indices
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Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Climate change and global warming are under discussion in chilly Copenhagen this week, and in Geneva the World Meteorological Organization is contributing its share of scientific data to heat up the debate. The WMO late Tuesday published its latest report on global temperature changes, which shows that “2009 is likely to rank in the top 10 warmest on record since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850.”
US President Barack Obama 25 November became the latest head of state to say he will be in Copenhagen for the climate conference, COP 15, in mid-December. Obama’s staff announced his travel plans as part of a statement that he is personally committed to cutting US emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels during the next 10 years, and by 83 percent by 2050. The US House of Representatives, the lower house of Congress, have passed a climate change bill, but the Senate, the upper house has not. A formal US commitment will require full congressional approval in the form of a jointly agreed bill.
China’s envoy to the conference, Yu Qingtai, announced Thursday 26 November that his country will go to COP 15 determined to have the same framework that was part of the Kyoto agreement, which the Copenhagen summit is designed to replace. Kyoto called for 37 wealthy countries to make commitments to cutting Co2 emissions, but not developing countries. The US was the only major country not to sign the Kyoto agreement.
Links to others sites: COP 15, CNN, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, White House blog
US President Barack Obama has thrown his weight behind reforming the US healthcare system and commiting the country to passing significant climate change legislation before world leaders meet in Copenhagen in December to replace the Kyoto agreement on CO2 emission. It now appears that lawmakers may not have the time or energy to deal with climate change laws that will increase consumers’ energy costs, with the fight to reform health care becoming bogged down. Obama will address Congress Wednesday 9 September in what is increasingly being portrayed as a key speech to get the health debate back on the rails. NPR, Reuters
Some 700,000 homes along the coastline in Australia are at risk from erosion as sea levels rise: the government says it expects the level to rise by one meter within 40 years, thanks to global warming. Some homes have already lost substantial amounts of land around them, from storms but also higher water levels, reports Reuters.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – If you’re too busy to dive into the complex topics surrounding climate change, under discussion in Geneva 31 August to 4 September during the third World Climate Conference in 30 years, consider these facts:
- Carbon sinking: any natural store of carbon that can absorb CO2 from the air, such as forests, grasslands and oceans. (WWF jargon buster & acronyms, climate change)
- Zebra mussels, tiny freshwater mollusks, invaded US waterways in the early 1980s, imported from Russia, and they now post water management problems in many areas, complicating existing problems due to changes in water levels and quality. (Boston.com and Trout Unlimited)
- Globally, 10 of the hottest years on record have occurred since 1990 (records began in 1861)(Cambridgeshire CC, UK)
- Read more…
Gordon Shepherd, WWF international policy and Martin Sommerkorn, WWF Arctic research, at Geneva climate conference
Photo: Marco Tedesco, WWF
Complete coverage of the WCC-3 by GenevaLunch
Conference is 31 August – 4 September 2009
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – One-quarter of the world’s population is likely to be affected by rising ocean levels provoked by melting Arctic ice, a WWF study released 2 September shows. The Arctic is heating up at twice the rate of the rest of the Earth, the new Arctic Climate Feedbacks report shows. As a result, the level of oceans can be expected to rise by one metre by the end of the 21st century, twice as fast as current predictions suggest.
The report pulls together the most recent data covering the Arctic and its impact. It includes the ice sheets of Greenland and West Antarctica in global sea level projections, which were not included in the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 2007 assessment of the Arctic, widely relied on. The addition of these areas appears likely to change temperature and precipitation patterns in Europe and North America, affecting agriculture, forestry and water supplies, the new data shows.
Photo: Marco Tedesco, WWF
The Arctic holds twice as much carbon as the rest of the world and the study indicates that as warming speeds up, carbon released by warmer soils could reach significant levels. Read more…
Lake Geneva
Complete coverage of the WCC-3 by GenevaLunch
Conference is 31 August – 4 September 2009
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Geneva is home this week to a key global conference on how the world can adapt to climate change – disasters such as floods and hurricanes, but also the more subtle changes that affect agriculture, tourism and daily life.
The conference agenda is wide-ranging and includes improvements to early warning systems for disasters and how to provide more precise and more localized weather forecasting, needed by developing countries as well as industries in the developed world.
The meeting is hosted by Switzerland and organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and a group of partners.
Two days of talks billed as a “strategic and economic dialogue” between China and the US concluded Tuesday 28 July in Washington DC, with nothing concrete but with broad agreement on ways to combat the world recession and on climate change. The two say they are now closer on a variety of issues, among them US strategic concerns on Iranian and North Korean nuclear ambitions. On the economic front, the Chinese government worries about the value of its massive holdings of US treasury debt, given huge US budget deficits and the resulting danger of inflation, and very low US savings. The US wants China to increase domestic spending to reduce its reliance on the export market, and to show flexibility on its exchange rate. Both remain committed to open trade and say they vowed to resist protectionism. US President Obama has called for a concerted effort to reduce carbon emissions, but developing economies like China hesitate because they fear this will cramp their growth. BBC, CNN, Le Temps (Fre), NZZ (Ger)
China is the world’s third largest economy and now the “world’s top greenhouse gas emitter,” notes Reuters, as Todd Stern, the US official with responsibility for climate change policy, visits Beijing, the latest in a series of meetings designed to move closer to agreement on gas emissions. China is grappling with balancing strong growth and reducing emissions. A Chinese official quoted by Reuters, Gao Guangsheng, says that “bridging disputes on basic principles will probably push talks to the wire” in December in Copenhagen meeting. Ministers from several countries will be meeting then to replace the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. Xinhua
Kofi Annan
Bern, Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – The Global Humanitarian Forum set up in 2007 by Kofi Annan, former UN director-general, is being audited by the Swiss government, reports TSR. Switzerland has contributed CHF500,000 in 2009 and is scheduled to pay another half million this year once the audit is completed. The decision to carry out a financial review was taken by Bern in September 2008. The forum’s “strategic focus” is the human impact of climate change, with its “centrepiece” a 23-24 June conference in Geneva, scheduled to host 400 world political and business leaders.
World climate conference to be held in Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The World Climate Conference, to be held in Geneva in August, has received an important pledge of financial support from the US, however, the Associated Press reports that a formal submission presented by the US to the United Nations offers no specifics for achieving a low-carbon strategy for long-term net emissions reductions by 2050.
Corey Billington, IMD
John R Wells, IMD
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Companies will need to focus on efficiency and minimizing lost profits while ensuring that they don’t forget their role as global citizens, says John R Wells, president of IMD. “In light of the current economic situation, sustainability is more important than ever,” and companies have to juggle social, environmental and economic considerations with sustainable performance in order to contribute to long-term prosperity.
US President Barack Obama will have a chance to show his new US approach to climate change and in particular limits to CO2 emissions with a special meeting in Washington starting Tuesday 28 April. It brings together the worst polluters, including the US, China and India, Reuters reports, as part of a gathering of major economies in advance of a December UN summit on climate change, in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The cryosphere includes the area around the top of the Matterhorn in canton Valais
Rome, Italy (The Independent, UK) – This may come as a surprise to many Swiss, but Italy is planning to officially move the border with Switzerland. The Italian parliament is preparing a law for April that will legally change the border, fixed since 1861, redrawing the line through the cryosphere, or eternal snow area in the Alps. Melting glaciers are the primary reason.
Climate changes are moving “beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived,” possibly becoming irreversible, according to a group of 2,000 climate change scientists meeting in Copenhagen to prepare the way for a major political meeting on climate change that will take place in the city in December 2009. CNN
US former Vice-president and Nobel laureate Al Gore received a warm reception in Congress when he told the US politicians the world is nearing a critical point of irreversible climate change and it has become urgent for the US to join talks on an international climate treaty. CNN
European leaders meeting in Poland hailed their agreement on limiting CO2 emissions and other climate change measures as “historic,” with French President Nicolas Sarkozy saying no other continent has agreed to such measures, according to the International Herald Tribune. The paper emphasizes, however, that the governments gave in to pressure from East European countries’ (it includes Poland and Hungary in this area) electric utilities and heavy industry sectors such as chemicals and steel, who argued that they cannot afford the changes in the current economic climate. So while Europe has now agreed to reduce CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020, it has also given several industries far longer to adapt than originally planned. Related articles: Financial Times
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao opened a conference on climate change in Beijing by insisting that rich nations must reduce pollution, sparking anew a debate over who should pay how much to reduce carbon emissions. Wen called for rich countries to end their unsustainable lifestyle and to help poorer nations obtain pollution reduction technology. While China now has the highest level of carbon emissions it lags far behind the US and other countries in the per person level of CO2 emissions. Reuters
Swiss forest, Valais: improved forest management and greater use of wood for buildings and heating fuel are helping reduce CO2.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland will likely meet its 2012 obligations for reducing CO2 that are part of the Kyoto Protocol, which it ratified in 2012. It should also be able to meet the country’s stricter CO2 Act obligations.
