News from the Secretary, January 2007- the Report of the IPCC

 
The first part of the 4th Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has now been published and the outlook is very bad unless the world acts quickly and decisively. This entire newsletter is devoted to this topic.

It is important to understand the workings of this reporting system. The previous report four years ago said that global warming was likely to be human-induced, the wording for 66-90% probability. The 2007 report uses very likely, a greater than 90% probability. More extreme wording was quashed by governments in this latest report. This illustrates that there is government influence on the consensus of the scientific Panel. In fact governmental influence exists at various levels. In 2001 the Bush regime responded to a memorandum from Exxon asking that Dr. Robert Watson, Chair of the IPCC, be replaced because of his publicly expressed opinion that greenhouse emissions must be reduced. Indeed he was replaced. The Union of Concerned Scientists has documented extensive government interference with the reports of scientists in the US, many of them IPCC contributors. (See our website www.dea.org.au, What’s New). For the 2001 and 2007 reports, I have been a Scientific Independent Assessor for some chapters of the reports. This involves comment and analysis of the consensus view of the scientific literature. There are also Government Assessors who inevitably bring governmental influence to the process. When the final consensus viewpoint of the scientists is ready, it is subject to changes in wording by the national governments.

The purpose of my comment is not to undermine your confidence in the report. The science is sound but the conclusions have been toned down I believe the situation is more serious than stated. Indeed the scientific literature on climate change since admission of scientific papers closed a year ago continues to suggest that warming is proceeding faster than predicted. In any event it doesn’t require me to spell out the effect of a 3 degree rise on Australia when we already have significant effects with 0.6 degrees. The press is full of information, mostly correct.

We should not allow this report to depress us into inactivity. Every puff of CO2 put into the atmosphere will exert an influence for hundreds of years. There is no way of retrieving it. The emphasis of Government is on adaptation to the warming. Statements are being made that we are such a small country that our sole effort to reduce emissions will make little difference. This is a prescription for inaction by all countries and cannot be ignored. There are two measures that can be adopted immediately to reduce emissions.

(1) Immediate expansion of renewable energy systems. DEA will have this as a priority this election year as we meet Ministers, Members and Senators.

(2) Energy conservation. Government, industry and individuals can act immediately and can have a demonstrable effect on their electricity consumption today. The message from Bill Castleden two weeks ago produced a big response from members and I will cover your suggestions with another letter in a day or two. With regard to our own responsibility to reduce our personal and practice use of energy, I can testify that the first 20% reduction is easy; it involves only the careful review of each energy-consuming part of both house and transport.

I have read the entire report. There is now no doubt in my mind that the world faces severe consequences from emissions already in the atmosphere. Every aspect of our lives will be affected not least health and wellbeing. These consequences will become even more severe unless we all give more time and effort to the problem. We face a new era. Just as the Enlightenment brought an era of rational and scientific thought, so there will be a new era, the post-climatic change era. It will not be a rejection of all enlightenment principles, but a totally different way of thinking about how we order society.

David Shearman
The viewpoints expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily those of the Management Committee.