ANALYSIS-Climate change doom reports don't stack up
Source: Reuters
(Adds quote) By Gerard Wynn LONDON, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Behind the picture of a serious climate change threat, painted in a U.N. report to be published on Friday, just how fast mankind can act remains unsure. "There are so many reports," said Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency and author of one of the biggest, the IEA's 596-page World Energy Outlook 2006. "Some are much more in-depth, some have a different focus. The thing is how much they link with reality." Inconsistencies abound -- a European Commission study for instance contradicts the EU's executive stated policy. Friday's report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), follows on the heels of a clutch of papers in the past four months, all predicting different shades of gloom but no consensus on cost and urgency. The U.N. report carries extra weight because it pulls together all the available research and all governments have to sign off on it. The final draft is clear -- humans are almost certainly causing climate change and will have to cope with an average warming of around three degrees centigrade by the end of this century even if the issue is tackled promptly. The IEA says that unless policymakers make an unprecedented effort, the best the world can expect is to keep carbon emissions around one-third above present levels by 2030. "We took policies and measures already being considered by governments, and likely to be implemented," said Birol, emphasising that the IEA's focus is on being realistic. Such a scenario would consign humanity to a roughly 3 degrees celsius temperature rise by 2100, according to Malte Meinshausen, climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. A rise of that order could cause a series of dangers, according to a report commissioned by the British government, the Stern review, published last October. These included: 1 - 4 billion more people suffer water shortages, 150 - 550 additional millions at risk of hunger, up to 170 million more people affected by coastal flooding, and up to 50 percent of species faced with extinction. For this reason the European Union wants global average temperatures not to exceed 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, something one Commission report says is too costly. EXPENSE Published this month two days before the European Commission affirmed its 2 degrees target, its own research report, the World Energy Technology Outlook, rejected it as too expensive. In discussions before writing the report the authors estimated this would require a 400 euros carbon price by 2050 -- compared with 15 euros at present. That would add 1 euro per litre of gasoline, said Domenico Rossetti di Valdalbero, the EC scientist who supervised the work. The report was prepared by a consortium of six European research organisations, and concluded that a 75 percent cut in developed countries carbon emissions by 2050 was consistent with two degrees, but did not analyse it on the basis of its cost. "I feel it is feasible but relatively expensive, which I feel most scientists involved in this report would agree with." Even a softened target, which would see developed countries halve their carbon emissions by 2050, would still require a carbon price of 200 euros per tonne by 2050 to encourage the adopting of low carbon emitting energy technology. The Stern Review, commissioned by the British government and published last year, recommends a 60 to 80 percent greenhouse gas emissions cut by rich nations by 2050, versus 1990 levels. "What we do know is that even the most aggressive of the targets and timetables will result in changes in climate that will significantly affect vulnerable people and ecosystems and will require an unprecedented programme of adaptation," Diana Liverman, Director of Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute, said. The IPCC report released this week focuses on the scientific evidence for climate change, and will be followed in April by a report on the likely impacts, and in May by a third report on how to fight it. The chair of the third report, Bert Metz, was hopeful this would make clearer urgency and cost, and was pragmatic. "Technologically, a lot is possible," he told Reuters. "When people say you can only do so much they normally mean it will cost too much, or it's not politically possible."
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