Global warming can be fought: IPCC

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: Scientists have done their job. They have said that fighting global warming is possible with affordable biofuels, renewable energy, reforestation and energy efficiency. They have even got their prescription endorsed by politicians from more than 100 countries. It’s now up to politicians to walk the talk.

‘Climate Change 2007: Mitigation of Climate Change’, the third report in a four-part series, was released today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is a network of over 2,000 UN scientists.

It follows the release of two other reports – Climate Change: Physical Science Basis, and Climate change: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability – earlier this year.

The new report warns, “With current climate change mitigation policies and related sustainable development practices, global GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions will continue to grow over the next few decades.”

Adds Achim Steiner, executive director, United Nations Environment Programme, “If greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb unchecked, we risk serious economic, social and environmental consequences across every community and country on the planet.”

Even if the recommended measures are taken today, the GHG emissions will keep on climbing. Explains the report, “In order to stabilise the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere, emissions would need to peak and decline thereafter. The lower the stabilisation level, the more quickly this peak and decline would need to occur.”

It all the more calls for taking action today. Emphasises James P Leape, director-general, WWF International, “We need to mitigate today in order to keep the damage at a low enough level to be able to adapt at all.”

Agrees Kristalina Georgieva, director for Strategy and Operations, Sustainable Development Vice- Presidency, The World Bank: “The more we do today, the less we need to adapt to climate change tomorrow.”

There is a rider, though. The international community needs to find ways to help emerging economies to buy down the cost of using cleaner technologies when it comes to coal fired power plants or the expansion of renewable energy, she adds.

The authors of the report are already seized of the matter. Noting that stabilisation can be achieved by deployment of a portfolio of technologies, it adds, “ This assumes that appropriate and effective incentives are in place for development, acquisition, deployment and diffusion of technologies and for addressing related barriers.”