Following the release of the IPCC report on global warming, top UN officials called for international action to reverse environmental damage.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, "Protecting the global environment is largely beyond the capacity of individual countries...This assault on the global environment risks undermining the many advances human society has made in recent decades. It is undercutting our fight against poverty. It could even come to jeopardize international peace and security."
General Assembly President Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa also noted, "We need clear objectives and strong ecological governance at the global level, a concept that continues to elude us...Without radical change, we will all ultimately find ourselves in a situation of generalized precariousness." More
As mentioned earlier on this blog, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - a body composed of hundreds of scientists from around the world - released its much awaited report on the causes and consequences of global warming.
Today's report is the group's fourth report on global warming since the United Nations established the IPCC in 1988. However, the newest report is the first assessment in which the group has stated with near full confidence (they say "90% certainty") that human activities are the main cause of global warming. From now on, when one hears the term "overwhelming scientific evidence" in a discussion about human activities and global warming, this report will be the point of reference.
Of course, the idea that humans cause global warming should be of little surprise to most people. But there are still some outfits that would like you to believe otherwise. Politically, the report is groundbreaking precisely because it should put to rest, once and for all, unhelpful debates over whether or not humans cause global warming. (Think: Galileo's scientific confirmation of Copernicus' theories about the earth and the sun.)
On the United Nations Foundation website, Richard Moss, director of the Climate Change program at the United Nations Foundation, discusses the significance of the just-released IPCC report. From 2000-2006, Moss directed the interagency US Climate Change Science Program Office, which was established to coordinate President Bush's Climate Change Research Initiative. Earlier in his career, Moss worked with the IPCC, editing and authoring several reports. He is, briefly stated, one of the country's foremost experts on climate change and public policy. You can listen to his podcast below.
Podcast:
Climate expert Richard Moss on the new UN IPCC Report
The much anticipated report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is now available. Click here for the report's 20 page summary for policy-makers.
"They are dubbed the 'climate canaries' - the people destined to become the first victims of world climate change. And as government ministers sit down in Nairobi at [the] UN Climate Conference, the people most likely to be wiped out by devastating global warming will be only a few hundred miles away from their deliberations.
"Global warming is threatening archaeological sites from Peru to Egypt as well as natural wonders such as the Caribbean's largest coral reef, a U.N. report said on Tuesday.
Heritage sites linked to thousands of years of civilization "may by virtue of climate change very well not be available to future generations," said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program." More