Flannery: UN report conservative

February 02, 2007 10:29am
From Courier Mail (QLD, AUS)



UN predictions of a rise in global temperatures would be a disaster for all life on earth, resulting in widespread extinction of many species, Australian of the Year Tim Flannery has said.

The respected scientist said the UN's prediction of a three degree Celsius temperature rise was conservative and in fact could be double that figure resulting in "truly catastrophic" conditions for all life on earth.

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases its report in Paris tonight, with its strongest warning yet that human activities are causing global warming that may bring more drought, heatwaves and rising seas.

IPCC scientists agreed it was "very likely" human activities were the main cause of warming in the past 50 years, predicting temperatures would rise by three degrees Celsius and sea levels by as much as 43cm by the turn of the century.

Professor Flannery said the UN climate report's predictions on the consequences of global warming are "middle of the road" but will still provide a useful benchmark for the world to tackle climate change.

Prof Flannery, whose recent book The Weather Makers said climate change was the most serious issue confronting humanity, said although the estimates were conservative, they would provide greater certainty about the consequences of global warming.

"It lays out a sort of middle of the road trajectory, which is alarming enough I can tell you, for this century," he told ABC Radio National.

"I don't think this idea of calling it catastrophic or anything else has anything to do with science. We need to look at the data objectively."

Temperatures could rise by much more than the IPCC's prediction of three degrees, he said. "It could be worse than this - there's a 10 per cent chance of truly catastrophic rises in temperatures, so we're looking at six degrees or so," Prof Flannery said.

"That would be a disaster for all life on earth. Three degrees will be a disaster for all life on earth.

"We will lose somewhere between two out of every 10 and six out of every 10 species living on the planet at that level of warming.

"It will set in train a series of climate consequences that will run for a thousand years."

Prof Flannery said the clearest example of the IPCC's conservatism was its prediction the Arctic ice cap could disappear in summers by 2100.

"The actual trajectory we've seen in the Arctic over the last two years, if you follow that, that implies that the Arctic ice cap will be gone in the next five to 15 years. This is an ice cap that's been around for the last three million years," he said.

"Those predictions tell you a little bit about the conservatism of the IPCC, how rapidly the science is moving and how rapidly events in the real world are moving, far in advance I think of even the most sombre warnings by scientists working in this area."

He also brushed off the IPCC's use of the words "very likely" in relation to climate change having a human footprint.

"I don't think that that's an issue for debate any more," he said.

"It's our problem, we have to do something about it. We have the tools, we're so far we're lacking the will."

The IPCC report is due to be released at 7.30pm (AEDT).\

Read the article.