Scientists call for climate change agreement
Updated on 24 November 2009
Three of the UK's leading scientific organisations call on world leaders to come to a lasting agreement on climate change at the Copenhagen summit next month.
Scientists from the Met Office, the Royal Society and the Natural Environment Research Council are jointly calling for action on climate change ahead of the summit.
And city the floods in the UK of 2007, the 2003 heatwave in Europe and persistent drought in Australia, they said there was increasing evidence that damaging climate events were already happening.
Gordon Brown is set to meet other world leaders at the climate summit on 7 December. Crucial decisions will be taken about limiting and reducing the impacts of climate change now and in the future.
The scientists claim that there is a sufficient body of scientific evidence to underpin the call for action now. They say that access to the best possible science will be essential to inform sound decision-making on policies to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
However, climate change sceptics say thousands of emails hacked from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit and posted online indicate that researchers massaged figures to mask the fact that world temperatures have been declining in recent years.
A statement issued by UAE in response to the leak said: "CRU’s published research is, and has always been, fully peer-reviewed by the relevant journals, and is one strand of research underpinning the strong consensus that human activity is affecting the world’s climate in ways that are potentially dangerous."
