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Report spurs backing for global body on warming
Feb. 3, 2007
Associated Press
Fear of runaway global warming pushed more than 40 countries to line up Saturday behind France’s bid for a new environmental body that could single out—and perhaps police—nations that abuse the Earth. Global warming is melting
the Greenland ice sheet, researchers say. (Courtesy NASA GSFC)
“It is our responsibilty. The future of humanity demands it,”
French President Jacques Chirac said in an appeal to put the environment at the top of the world’s agenda.
He spoke at a conference in Paris a day after the release of a grim landmark report from the world’s leading climate scientists and government officials that said global warming is so severe that it will “continue for centuries” and that humans are to blame.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report sparked calls for fast,
planet-wide action. But not everyone at Chirac’s conference welcomed the idea of a body that would define and possibly enforce environmental rules.
Key world polluters—including the United States, China and India—steered clear, while Europeans embraced it. A total of 46 countries agreed to pursue plans for the new organization.
Former Vice President Al Gore, whose documentary on the perils of global warming has scored two Oscar nominations, cheered Chirac’s efforts.
Friday’s report was “yet another warning about the dangers we face. We must act, and act swiftly,” Gore said in recorded remarks shown at the conference. “We are at a tipping point.”
The 21-page report said man-made emissions of heat-trapping “greenhouse gases” are to blame for fewer cold days, hotter nights, heat waves, floods and heavy rains, droughts and
stronger storms, particularly in the Atlantic Ocean.
The report found if nothing is done to change current emissions patterns of greenhouse gases, global temperatures could increase as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. But if the world does get greenhouse gas emissions under control—somethi 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, the report said.
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, said Australian scientist Nathaniel Bindoff, a co-author.
Authors of the report called it conservative: It used only peer-reviewed published science and was edited by representatives of 113 governments who had to agree to every word. It was a snapshot of where the world is with global warming and where it is heading, but does not tell governments what to do.
The panel, created by the United Nations in 1988, releases its assessments every five or six years, though scientists have been observing aspects of climate change since as far back as the 1960s. The reports are released in phases—Friday’s report was the first of four this year.
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