2Sustain

Today’s blog post comes from our distinguished partner and co-sponsor of 2sustain, WSP Environmental Strategies. The post is authored by Josh C. Whitney, one of WSP’s key consultants. We will have these partner perspectives a couple of times per month, with important updates from WSP’s vast experience in environmental consulting.

The Nobel Peace prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report yesterday summarizing over 5 years of scientific research on the impacts and future predictions of climate change.  It is not an uplifting read but important that everyone understand the scientific consensus.

“What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.”

- Rajendra Pachauri, a scientist and economist who heads the IPCC

The paragraph from the report that I found most revealing was the following:

“Climate change is likely to lead to some irreversible impacts.  There is medium confidence that approximately 20-30% of species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average warming exceed 1.5-2.5 degrees C (relative to 1980-1999).  As global average temperature increase exceeds about 3.5 degrees C, model projections suggest significant extinctions (40-70% of species assessed) around the globe.”

I have included below relevant excerpts from the following articles: BBC, Herald Tribune, New York Times

The 23-page draft report can be downloaded from the above BBC article link and contains many informative diagrams.

It may be of interest to note that this was released over the weekend when people are statistically less likely to read the news. The report has been edited by governments worldwide with much debate and revision of wording coming from the US, China and India.

NEWS ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS: Among the 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 IPCC for the first time specifically points out important risks if governments fail to respond: melting ice sheets that could lead to a rapid rise in sea levels and the extinction of large numbers of species brought about by even moderate amounts of warming, on the order of 1 to 3 degrees.

This so-called synthesis report seeks to combine lessons from all three previous IPCC reports. Its conclusions are culled from data contained in the thousands of pages that were essentially technical supplements to the panel’s previous publications. How that data is summarized and presented to the world is a powerful guide to what the scientists consider of utmost importance at the end of a five-year process, offering concrete guidelines for policy makers.

Even though the synthesis report is more alarming than its predecessors, some researchers believe that it still understates the trajectory of global warming and its impact.

“The world is already at or above the worst-case scenarios in terms of emissions,” said Gernot Klepper, of the Kiel Institute for World Economy in Kiel, Germany. “In terms of emissions, we are moving past the most pessimistic estimates of the I.P.C.C., and by some estimates we are above that red line.”

A recent International Energy Agency report looking at the unexpectedly rapid emissions growth in China and India estimated that if current policies were not changed the world would warm six degrees by 2030, a disastrous increase far higher than the panel’s estimates of one to four degrees by the end of the century.

“A relatively modest degree of warming — one to three degrees — spells a lot of trouble and I think that was not clear in the previous report,” Dr. Oppenheimer said.

The panel suggests societies need to adapt to future impacts, as well as curbing emissions. Without extra measures, carbon dioxide emissions will continue to rise; they are already growing faster than a decade ago, partly because of increasing use of coal.

The IPCC’s economic analyses say that trend can be reversed at reasonable cost. Indeed, it says, there is "much evidence that mitigation actions can result in near-term co-benefits (e.g. improved health due to reduced air pollution)" that may offset costs.

The panel’s scientists say the reversal needs to come within a decade or so if the worst effects of global warming are to be avoided. The findings will feed into the Bali talks on the UN climate convention and the Kyoto Protocol which open on December 3.