There have been some major wake-up calls in the fight against global warming, starting with the United Nations scolding the U.S. for not doing enough to mitigate its contributions to the problem.

U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer told the Associated Press that it’s "very clear" the U.S. is not on the right track, despite the Bush administration’s recent openness to even discussing the problem and the series of meetings President Bush has scheduled with world leaders.

More U.N. meetings begin today to prepare for the Bali talks in December that will include negotiations of how to proceed after the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. On Thursday, President Bush convenes his own two-day meeting with 15 big-emitter nations. Some worry that his smaller, more limited round of negotiations will undercut the Bali discussions.

Our friends across the pond didn’t hear any good news on the climate change front, either. A representative of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) told the BBC that it’s unlikely the European Union will achieve their goal of keeping global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

Professor Martin Parry is the co-chair of the IPCC, the group that has brought us three reports so far this year on the science, impacts, and solutions of climate change. He told the BBC that the chances of humans keeping the average global temperature increase less than 2 degrees C is "quite little."

He went on to explain that the increase of more than 2 degrees will result in major consequences. Water shortages around the globe may occur (especially in areas with melting glaciers that depend on the freeze and thaw for water), heat waves may increase, and crops may be threatened.

Parry believes it is still possible to contain the rise in temperature to less than 3 degrees Celsius, although, as always, our actions have to be swift. In the meantime, world leaders must discuss "very seriously" plans for significant adaptation measures.

Associated Press, via Kansas City Star
BBC
Terra Daily

Today the fourth and final assessment from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “Mitigation of Climate Change,” will be released. More than 400 scientists and experts from 120 countries are in Bangkok, Thailand this week to finalize the report. The summary of Mitigation of Climate Change will be posted here; go here for a live webcast around 1PM local time. The full report will be released in September.

The report will lay out ways to cut global warming emissions and prevent the worst impacts without seriously hurting the global economy. In fact, it is expected to show that the cost of doing nothing is far higher than the cost of taking action now.

On Wednesday, the Taipei Times reported that talks were stalled by China, India, and Brazil, who insisted that industrialized nations take more responsibility for their pollution contribution. The stalemate took up other time meant for discussion on how to best tackle global warming. One European delegate reported:

"Progress is slow…Brazil, India and China are trying to put on the shoulders of industrialized nations the historic responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions in order to clear their own emissions [of blame] and to protect themselves in any discussion.”

The report will assess not only the long-term options available for the next 100 years, but a range of economic, technological, and institutional solutions and covering short and medium-term timelines up until 2030, explained Dr. R.K. Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Taipei Times
World Wildlife Fund

Yesterday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its second report of the year on global warming. Back in February, the IPCC explained the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. This time, we learn the impacts.

For increases in global mean temperature of less than 1-3 degrees Celsius above 1990 levels, impacts may produce benefits in some places and some sectors, and produce costs in other places and sectors. However, some low latitude and polar regions of the world will see net costs rise even with only small increases in temperature. Once the average temperature increases more than 2-3 degrees Celsius in any region, however, it is “very likely” that we wil see declining benefits and instead see an increase in net costs.

The Summary for Policymakers of the Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability reports the projected effects of climate change:

• Costs and benefits of climate change for industry, settlement, and society will vary widely by location and scale. In the aggregate, however, net effects will tend to be more negative the larger the change in climate.

• Crop productivity is projected to increase slightly at mid to high latitudes for local mean temperature increases of up to 1-3 degrees Celsius depending on the crop, and then decrease beyond that in some regions.

• Studies in temperate areas have shown that climate change is projected to bring some benefits, such as fewer deaths from cold exposure. Overall it is expected that these benefits will be outweighed by the negative health effects of rising temperatures world-wide, especially in developing countries.

• Approximately 20-30 percent of plant and animal species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperature exceed 1.5-2.5 degrees Celsius.

Each word of the report had to be agreed upon by consensus, but disputes between the scientific authors and diplomatic editors infuriated some scientists. They claim the predicted impacts have been watered down because of political interference. For example, a sentence that originally said scientists had “very high confidence” (greater than 90 percent) that many natural systems would be affected by rising temperatures was changed to “high confidence” (greater than 80 percent) at the insistence of delegates from China and Saudi Arabia.

The report goes on to say that global warming cannot be stopped at this point, only slowed down. However, the most catastrophic effects can still be avoided with swift and decisive global action. The IPCC recommends a combination of adaptation and mitigation measures:

Even the most stringent mitigation efforts cannot avoid further impacts of climate change in the next few decades, which makes adaptation essential, particularly in addressing near-term impacts. Unmitigated climate change would, in the long term, be likely to exceed the capacity of natural, managed and human systems to adapt.

This suggests the value of a portfolio or mix of strategies that includes mitigation, adaptation, technological development (to enhance both adaptation and mitigation) and research (on climate science, impacts, adaptation and mitigation).

The full report will be released next week. It includes more than 2,500 scientists appointed by more than 130 countries.

The IPCC was created by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme to assess the scientific, technical, and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk for climate change, along with its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. Its assessments are based solely on peer reviewed and published scientific/technical literature.

CNN
Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability: Summary for Policymakers
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

ExxonMobil was recently scorched in the spotlight when an article in the UK newspaper the Guardian tied the planet’s largest corporation to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a vehemently free-market, right-leaning organization that tried to pay scientists and economists to author articles casting doubt on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) global warming report. This didn’t surprise many people, as Exxon has never had a reputation of being green or progressive on global warming solutions.

But can Exxon defend itself? Has it joined the rest of the world in recognizing global warming is happening? If so, what are its plans to slow it?

I had the privilege of participating in two telephone news conferences with ExxonMobil’s Vice President of Public Affairs, Ken Cohen, to answer some of these questions. Other bloggers on the call were Jesse Jenkins from Watthead, Tom Yulsman from Prometheus, Susan Smith from the Environmental Law Prof Blog, and Stuart Staniford from The Oil Drum. One call took place on January 26, a week before the IPCC report was released. The next happened on February 2, the day the IPCC report and the Guardian article came out. This post is the first of a 2-part series on Exxon’s response to the allegations in the Guardian, its position on global warming, and what it thinks should be done about it.

I went in with an open mind: To be sure, Exxon was making a concerted effort to reach out to the blogosphere and discuss its position on global warming – that in itself was big news. But I also expected some real answers that would give me at least a glimmer of hope that this behemoth was taking decisive action.

“The IPCC report is the best compilation of the thinking on the subject,” Cohen told us, insisting that Exxon takes global warming very seriously and has in fact recognized the problem for twenty years. He spelled it out further:

Is the climate warming? Yes. Are CO2 emissions up? Yes, they’ve never been as high as they’ve been [now]. Man’s use of fossil fuels and land use changes and other human activity contribute to that CO2 rise.

So did ExxonMobil fund AEI to muddle the dialogue on global warming?

“We had no knowledge that this was going on,” insisted Cohen. He explained that Exxon funds a lot of different groups, and “when we fund them, we want good analysis." Exxon does not condone what AEI did, but Cohen confirmed that it does continues to fund AEI, although other groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute are not funded by them anymore.

Cohen assured us that Exxon is “trying to be a constructive player in the policy discussion and not associate [themselves] with those that are marginalized and are not welcome in that discussion.” The IPCC report “is what it is,” and Exxon does not believe in engaging in scientific research that preordains an answer. Cohen:

…that's the issue with AEI: Are they preordaining an answer?…I can understand taking a market approach or a government interventionist approach, but this is not a question of trying to find who’s right or who’s wrong. Let’s let the process work.

But, I asked, how can you grant AEI nearly two million dollars and not know what they’re doing with the money? Turns out that Exxon conveniently funds the “general operations” of AEI, not specific programs that would allow them to track how the money is being used. Perhaps Exxon needs to think hard next time before it funds an organization so clearly disinterested in constructive solutions.

Cohen was consistently explicit in Exxon's position that global warming is happening and mainly caused by human activities. If that is true, then how will Exxon fight the huge misperception that it’s still the planet's largest naysayer? Cohen conceded that the company needed to do a better job of communicating its position on global warming, rather than allowing a fact sheet or news release on their website to do the work.

Jesse Jenkins asked whether it would consider joining the new U.S. Climate Energy Action Partnership, a coalition of major corporations and environmental organizations calling for federal carbon dioxide regulation. When Cohen answered this question in our first conference call, he seemed cool to the idea, pointing out that Exxon is already part of many global warming discussion groups and that some of their scientists participate in the IPCC. However, Cohen brought the idea up himself on our second call, this time saying that the Partnership is a group “…that we might join and participate in the discussions – if they’ll have us.”

Coming up Thursday: What is Exxon doing to mitigate its contributions to global warming? Which policies and market-based solutions does it think would be the most effective? How is Exxon staying market-competitive in a shifting energy system?

CBS News.com
News Release: ExxonMobil's response to publication of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report of Climate Science
News Release: Addressing the Risks of Climate Change: ExxonMobil's Views and Actions
The Guardian: Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study