Global warming - publié le 24/11/2009

Résumé du document

The fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was published in Paris on February 2nd, 2007. This report makes it clear that the currently observed global warming is not natural. The IPCC is the body set up under the auspices of the United Nations. 2500 scientists from around the world gathered in Paris from January 29th to February 2nd, and they confirmed the unnatural and the fast warming up of the earth's atmosphere. The first IPCC Assessment Report was released in 1990, the second in 1995, and the third in 2001.

Extraits

[...] The report also said that no matter how much mankind reduces greenhouse gas emissions, global warming will continue for centuries, due to the thermal inertia of oceans and the lag-time between emissions and observed atmospheric temperature change. But if we continue our current range, there will be a four-degree rise. At worse a six degree rise. If we switch to a greener economy, there will be a raise but then it would level off. The scientific debate is over. It now becomes an economic and political debate, over how to deal with the problem of global warming. However, the report did not make recommendations on how governments should work against global warming. [...]

[...] They announced a big rise in temperatures this century and more heat waves, droughts, floods, storms, and rising sea level, linked to greenhouse gases released by the use of fossil fuels. They also predicted that the warming will continue for hundreds of years. The fourth IPCC assessment report is unsurprising because, although some figures differ from those in the third assessment report published in 2001, the changes are minimal. Moreover, its broad conclusion, that something serious is happening and that man is in part responsible, remains the same. [...]

[...] I think that this report won't change anything. Leaders who care about the planet will continue to cut back on their greenhouse gases (as Germany does), but others won't change their environmental policy. For example, the United States, the bigger polluter of the world, is still reluctant to engage an environmental policy, and doesn't want to accept international environmental regulations. The Bush administration played down the U.S. contribution to climate change on that Friday and called for a "global discussion" of the problem. [...]