Landmark climate report: Clock is ticking

updated 6:54 p.m. ET Feb. 2, 2007

PARIS - Global warming is so severe that it will “continue for centuries,” leading to a far different planet in 100 years, warned a grim landmark report from the world’s leading climate scientists and government officials. Yet, many of the experts are hopeful that nations will now take action to avoid the worst scenarios.

They tried to warn of dire risks without scaring people so much they’d do nothing — inaction that would lead to the worst possible scenarios.

“It’s not too late,” said Australian scientist Nathaniel Bindoff, a co-author of the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report completed on Friday. The worst can be prevented by acting quickly to curb greenhouse gas emissions, he said.

The worst could mean more than 1 million dead and hundreds of billions of dollars in costs by 2100, said Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, one of many study co-authors. He said that adapting will mean living with more extreme weather such as severe droughts, more hurricanes and wildfires.

“It’s later than we think,” said panel co-chair Susan Solomon, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist who helped push through the document’s strong language as co-chair of the report.

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level,” the scientists said.

The report blamed man-made emissions of greenhouse gases for fewer cold days, hotter nights, killer heat waves, floods and heavy rains, devastating droughts, and an increase in hurricane and tropical storm strength — particularly in the Atlantic Ocean.

Solomon, who remains optimistic about the future, said it’s close to too late to alter the future for her children — but maybe it’s not too late for her grandchildren.

The report was the first of four to be released this year by the panel, which was created by the United Nations in 1988. It found:

• Recent global warming is “very likely” caused by man, meaning more than 90 percent certain. That’s the strongest expression of certainty to date from the panel.
• If nothing is done to change current emissions patterns of greenhouse gases, global temperature could increase as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.
• But if the world does get greenhouse gas emissions under control — something scientists say they hope can be done — the best estimate is about 3 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Sea levels are projected to rise 7 to 23 inches by the end of the century. Add another 4 to 8 inches if recent, surprising melting of polar ice sheets continues.

Sea level rise could get worse after that. By 2100, if nothing is done to curb emissions, the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet would be inevitable and the world’s seas would eventually rise by more than 20 feet, Bindoff said.

That amount of sea rise would take centuries, said Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria in Canada, but “if you’re in Florida or Louisiana, or much of western Europe or southeast Asia or Bangladesh ... or Manhattan ... you don’t want that,” he said.

The U.N. Environment Program noted that “for the first time, the report provides evidence that the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland are slowly losing mass and contributing to sea level rise.”

“The speed with which melting ice sheets are raising sea levels is uncertain, but the report makes clear that sea levels will rise inexorably over the coming centuries. It is a question of when and how much, and not if,” said Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the U.N. World Meteorological Organization.

Politicians react
The full report won't be published until May, but a 21-page executive summary for policymakers released Friday spurred bleak reactions from world leaders.

“We are on the historic threshold of the irreversible,” warned French President Jacques Chirac, who called for an economic and political “revolution” to save the planet.

“While climate changes run like a rabbit, world politics move like a snail: Either we accelerate or we risk a disaster,” said Italy’s environment minister, Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio.

And South Africa’s Environmental Affairs Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said failure to act would be “indefensible.”

In Washington, Bush administration officials praised the report but said they still oppose mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The problem can be addressed by better technology that will cut emissions, promote energy conservation, and hasten development of non-fossil fuels, said Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.

About three-fourths of Americans say they expect global warming will get worse, according to a recent AP-AOL News poll. However, other recent polls have found they don’t consider it a top priority for the U.S. government.

But doing nothing about global warming could mean up to a 10-degree Fahrenheit temperature rise by the end of the century in the United States, said report co-author Jonathan Overpeck at the University of Arizona.

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