Climate experts neared agreement on Friday on the strongest United Nations warning yet about the impacts of global warming, ranging from failing crops and hunger in Africa to species extinctions and rising sea levels. But scientists working with government delegates from more than 100 nations on the UN climate panel were still stuck in talks after an all-night session in Brussels.
One lead author said China, Russia and Saudi Arabia had pushed to water down some forecasts in the report, which has to be approved unanimously. Another participant said the United States was pushing for changes toning down some passages.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), grouping the work of 2 500 scientists, hopes to publish a 21-page summary at 8am GMT. It warns that global warming will hit the poor hardest.
Some scientists objected, for instance, after China sought to eliminate a note saying that there was ”very high confidence” that climate change was already affecting ”many natural systems, on all continents and in some oceans”.
China, the second largest greenhouse gas producer after the US, wanted no mention of the level of confidence.
Still, delegates sharpened other sections, including adding a warning that some African nations might have to spend five to 10% of gross domestic product on adapting to climate change.
Overall, the report will be the bleakest UN assessment yet of the threat of climate change, predicting water shortages that could affect billions of people, extinctions of species and a rise in ocean levels that could go on for centuries.
Glaciers
It says human greenhouse gas emissions are very likely to be the main cause of warming. It also says climate change could cause a sharp fall in crop yields in Africa, a thaw of Himalayan glaciers and more heatwaves for Europe and North America.
In one section, the IPCC toned down risks of extinctions.
”Approximately 20 to 30% of plant and animal species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperature exceed 1,5 to 2,5 degrees Celsius,” the text said.
A previous draft had said 20 to 30% of all species would be at ”high risk” of extinction with those temperature rises.
The report also softened a sentence saying salt marshes and mangroves ”will be” negatively affected by sea level rise to say they ”are projected to be” negatively affected.
But it toughened some sections by saying ”significant loss of biodiversity” was possible in parts of Australia such as the Great Barrier Reef by 2020.
The IPCC report makes clear climate change, blamed mainly on human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, is no longer a vague, distant threat.
”The whole of climate change is something actually here and now rather than something for the future,” said Neil Adger, a British lead author of the report. The report will set the tone for policy making in coming years, including the effort to extend the UN’s Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012. Kyoto binds 35 rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions but has been undercut by a 2001 pull-out by the United States, the top emitting nation.
US President George Bush says Kyoto would cost US jobs and wrongly excludes developing nations such as China.
Friday’s report will be the second by the IPCC this year. In February, the first said it was more than 90% probable that mankind was to blame for most global warming since 1950. – Reuters