Conflicts over global warming theory

GENEVA, Switzerland (CNN) -- A report linking global warming with environmental disasters has been unveiled on Monday, sparking mixed opinions by the scientific community.

The report, compiled by a working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was criticised by parts of the scientific community, who say the solid evidence for unusual global warming is not there.

The IPCC issued the document as part of a massive effort to update knowledge on the scale and impact of global warming.

It said: "No country can afford to ignore the coming transformation of its natural and human environment. The poor and vulnerable are at greatest risk.

"This report is a timely reminder that we need to pay more attention to the costs of inaction, and that the costs if action to cut emissions are just part of the climate change equation."

But the criticism comes from industrialists producing or using fuels like coal and oil, as well as critics of the U.N. who suggest the panel's programme is part of a plot to install a global government of international bureaucrats.

Diplomats involved in last week's closed-door Geneva sessions said Saudi Arabia, a major oil producer, delayed approval of the Summary for Policymakers by arguing over almost every line of the text.

The panel calculates that the so-called "greenhouse effect" of carbon dioxide (CO2), caused by unhindered burning of fossil fuels, will cause the Earth's atmosphere to warm by up to 5.8 C. (10.4 F.) by 2100.

Scientists outside the wide embrace of the IPCC, say the work the panel has done over the past 10 years has effectively ended debate on whether warming is taking place or not and moved the issue on to the measures that need to be taken.

IPCC backers hope the new reports will also encourage governments to try harder after they failed at a meeting in the Hague last November to agree on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

In a comment on the report, the global conservation body WWF's Washington-based Climate Change Campaign director Jennifer Morgan said: "It is time for governments such as the United States to get serious about reducing their carbon dioxide emissions."

The report by the IPCC is the second of four to be issued this year as governments gird up for another effort to shape an international agreement on how the problem can be tackled and the predicted disaster averted.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Scientists warn of climate devastation
February 19, 2001

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
United Nations

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