Climate report's grim warning
Updated on 06 April 2007
A new United Nations report on global warming warns of water shortages and hunger on a huge scale.
No country is immune, no government should ignore it - that's the stark warning from the world's top scientists about climate change.
The United Nations' latest report on global warming paints a grim picture: billions of people facing water shortages and hunger, mass migration from coastal regions and the extinction of up to one-third of the world's species.
The report, toned down after overnight pressure from some of the 130 countries involved, will form the basis of governments' environmental response for decades to come.
IPCC report predictions
- Rising sea levels will flood out many millions
- Up to 30% of plant and animal species face extinction
- Drought and deserts will spread
- Crops will fail soon in dry tropical regions, but grow better nearer the poles at first
- Hunger, malnutrition and disease will affect millions, with Africa the hardest hit
More than 100 nations have agreed: the world's climate is changing, and will change, in ways that will affect billions. And it won't be fair.
Critically, for the first time the predictions are based not on computer models but on hard scientific evidence gathered in the field, of climate change happening now.
China insisted that the statement 'Many natural systems... are being affected by regional climate changes' be chopped to reduce its impact.
Agreement didn't come without a fight. America, Russia, China, India and Saudi Arabia all lobbied to water down the report.
What got watered down was the sense of certainty. So China insisted that the statement "Many natural systems... are being affected by regional climate changes" be chopped to reduce its impact.
The US government ensured that an assessment on sea level rise around their coast, which read "very likely to increase... economic losses" was adjusted to produce the more positive-sounding "climate change... is projected to increase yields of rain-fed agriculture".
Even so, the main message is intact: politicians won't be able ignore these findings. After all, they've signed up to this.
The G8 meets in June with China and India, and the next round of talks on what follows the Kyoto Agreement is in December. They'll have to have good excuses for not doing enough.
