More UN climate claims undermined
The Australian January 25 2010
- Climate change disasters doubted
- Little evidence to back up claim
- Claim was basis of compo case
The UN Climate Science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to a rise in natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny - and ignored warnings from scientific advisers, The Australian reports.
The report's author later withdrew the claim because the evidence was too weak.
The link was central to demands at last month's Copenhagen climate summit by African nations for compensation of $US100 billion from the rich nations.
However, the IPCC knew in 2008 that the link could not be proved but did not alert world leaders, who have used weather extremes to bolster the case for action on climate change.
Kevin Rudd last November linked weather extremes to the debate over the Government's emissions trading scheme.
"We will feel the effects of climate change fastest and hardest, and therefore we must act this week, and the government will be doing everything possible to make sure that can occur," the Prime Minister said at the time.
British Climate Change Minister Ed Miliband has suggested floods - such as those in Bangladesh in 2007 - could be linked to global warming.
US President Barack Obama said last year: "More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent."
Last month British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the UK Parliament that the financial agreement at Copenhagen "must address the great injustice that . . . those hit first and hardest by climate change are those that have done least harm".
The IPCC has now been forced to reassess its report linking extreme weather to climate change.
The UN body's about-face comes less than a week after it was forced to retract claims that the Himalayan glaciers would be largely melted by 2035.
The claim was sourced to an environmental group's report of an interview in New Scientist magazine.
The Australian January 25 2010
- Climate change disasters doubted
- Little evidence to back up claim
- Claim was basis of compo case
