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Ref: 426/07
Date: 17 November 2007

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IPCC final conclusions confirm need for urgent global climate action

The world must face up to the challenge set by an international panel of scientists to act urgently to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or deal with serious consequences, Environment Minister Phil Woolas said today.

Mr Woolas said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had produced the most comprehensive and authoritative work to date on the state of global climate change, and its message to governments around the world was stark.

The IPCC, which was last month awarded the Nobel Prize for increasing global knowledge about man-made climate change and laying the foundations to fight it, today released its Synthesis Report, the final part of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Climate Change 2007.

The report states that urgent action must be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or climate change will intensify and have a dramatic effect on the natural world and human society.

Mr Woolas said:

“No government can ignore the IPCC’s work on the risks of climate change. It’s a clear call to action that when we meet in Bali next month, we must launch formal negotiations on an international climate agreement that will include every major country on earth.

“The agreement this week in the United States by the Midwest Governors’ Association to cut emissions and introduce carbon trading has also given a tremendous boost going into the Bali talks.

“We must not squander the political will and momentum that the IPCC’s work has generated this year. Instead, we must take this chance to start serious work on a new UN climate framework that can be agreed by the end of 2009.”

The Synthesis Report (SYR) is a product of intense week long discussions in Valencia, Spain, and provides a definitive conclusion to the climate change debate. It provides in one concise document the complete view of the climate change issue, based on the three IPCC Climate Change 2007 assessment reports published earlier this year. It draws on the knowledge of more than 1200 experts from all over the world.

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon attended the unveiling of the fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in Valencia, Spain. The document is seen as a landmark reference paper for governments trying to tackle global warming and a key text that will be available to the delegates as they head for Bali to negotiate the development of a future regime to curb climate change beyond 2012.

Background

The six years since the last IPCC’s Third Assessment Report have seen significant progress in understanding past and recent climate change and in projecting future changes. These advances have built on significant increases in new data, more sophisticated analyses, and on improvements in the understanding and simulation of physical processes in climate models. The increased confidence in climate science provided by these developments is evident in this IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report.

Although the SYR does not provide new results from the Working Group reports released earlier this year, it does provide new insights and an integrated view of the key issues.

Its key messages are:

  • Warming of the climate system is unequivocal and the role of human activities in the observed changes is now clearer than ever and much greater than any natural factors.
  • In the absence of effective international agreement and further efforts to reduce emissions GHG concentrations will continue to grow rapidly over the coming decades resulting in an increase of temperature of between 1.7°C and 4.0°C by 2100.
  • Some risks are projected to be larger or likely to occur at lower increases in temperature than in the previous IPCC report.
  • As warming proceeds, other climate changes and rising sea levels will adversely affect food and water resources, human health, infrastructure, and biodiversity and economies throughout the world.
  • Climate change will increasingly threaten vulnerable systems, and increase the risk of abrupt or irreversible climate change, such as ice sheet melt and sea-level rise.
  • A portfolio of adaptation and mitigation measures can reduce the overall risks associated with climate change. Whilst adaptation is the only means to respond to the impacts in the near term, there are limits to what adaptation can achieve in the long term if GHG are not curtailed. Mitigation is the only way to curb global climate change in the long term.
  • In order to limit the adverse impact of climate change, including risks to vulnerable ecosystems and populations, global emissions need to peak soon and decline rapidly.
  • It is economically and technically feasible to make significant reductions in emissions and the extent of mitigation efforts over the next two decades will largely determine how far risks are reduced, avoided or delayed.
  • Postponing action to cut GHG will increase the costs of damage and will increase the costs of action.

Notes to editors

1. Today’s report, the “Synthesis Report" (SYR), is the fourth and final volume of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) "Climate Change 2007" assessment report. It is explicitly targeted to policymakers, and represents the final step in integrating and presenting the comprehensive scientific information contained in the three IPCC reports released earlier this year. The Synthesis Report is made of six topics in addition to the Summary for Policy Makers: Observed changes and effect, Causes of changes, Climate change and its impacts in the near and long term under different scenarios, Adaptation and mitigation options and responses and the inter-relationship with sustainable development, Long-term perspective, Robust findings, key uncertainties.

The three previous IPCC reports examined the themes of science, impacts and adaptation, and mitigation. All four reports can be found at: www.ipcc.ch.

2. The AR4 is the result of six years work by more than 1200 lead and contributing author scientists from more than 130 countries. It assesses the current scientific understanding of climate change, its impacts and how best to respond. The work is reviewed by a further 2500 scientific experts.

3. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up in 1988 to assess the scientific and technical aspects of climate change. The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President of the United States Al Gore "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change" (www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/press.html).

4. The IPCC is sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). Since its establishment in 1988, the IPCC has produced a series of publications, which have become standard works of reference. The reports and technical summaries are prepared wholly by the scientists from all regions of the world. More information about the IPCC is available on the IPCC website www.ipcc.ch.

5. The IPCC does not carry out research. It bases its assessment mainly on peer reviewed and published scientific/technical literature.

6. On 12 October 2007, the IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with former US Vice-President Al Gore. The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the prize “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.” The award will be presented to the winners in Oslo, Norway, on 10 December 2007.

7. The UK provides financial support to Professor Martin Parry, who co-chairs the IPCC Working Group II (WGII) on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, and the WGII Technical Unit, which supports Prof. Parry in this role. The UK government also supports the head of the technical unit responsible for production of the Synthesis Report.

8. Defra also supports UK lead authors and review editors to participate in IPCC writing groups.

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Page last modified: 17 November 2007
Page published: 17 November 2007

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