Friday February 09, 2007

UN climate panel : global warming is man-made

news.yahoo.com :

The world's top climate scientists said global warming was man-made, spurring calls for urgent government action to prevent severe and irreversible damage from rising temperatures. The United Nations panel, which groups 2,500 scientists from more than 130 nations, predicted more droughts, heatwaves, rains and a slow gain in sea levels that could last for more than 1,000 years.

The scientists said it was "very likely" - or more than 90% probable - that human activities led by burning fossil fuels explained most of the warming in the past 50 years. That is a toughening from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) last report in 2001, which judged a link as "likely," or 66% probable.

"Faced with this emergency, now is not the time for half measures. It is the time for a revolution, in the true sense of the term," French President Jacques Chirac said. "We are in truth on the historical doorstep of the irreversible."

The report predicts a "best estimate" that temperatures would rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 Celsius (3.2 and 7.8 Fahrenheit) in the 21st century, within a likely range from 1.1 to 6.4 Celsius. Temperatures rose 0.7 degrees in the 20th century and the 10 hottest years since records began in the 1850s have been since 1994. Greenhouse gases are released mainly by burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars.

The report projects a rise in sea levels of between 18 and 59 centimeters (7 and 23 inches) in the 21st century - and said bigger gains could not be ruled out if ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland thaw. Rising seas threaten low-lying islands, coasts of countries such as Bangladesh and cities from Shanghai to Buenos Aires.

(2007-02-09 07:32:49 SGT) [Env] Permalink

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