Firm focus on fossil fuels in new IPCC climate change report
04/11/2014
“Human influence on the climate system is clear and growing, with impacts observed on all continents,” the synthesis document, which was released at a press conference in Copenhagen on November 2, makes clear. “If left unchecked, climate change will increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems.”
However, the document also says options are available for humanity to adapt to climate change. By implementing what it calls “stringent mitigation activities”, the peoples of the world can ensure that the impacts of climate change “remain within a manageable range, creating a brighter and more sustainable future”.
Although livestock farming comes in for intense criticism from some environmental campaigners, the same criticism is absent from the synthesis report. It says reducing emissions of non-CO2 climate forcing agents, including methane, can be an important element of mitigation strategies and insists that low-cost options to reduce many of these emissions are available. But it says specifically that methane emissions from livestock “are difficult to mitigate”.
In contrast, the synthesis report says most of the mitigation scenarios that scientists have suggested are associated with reduced revenues from coal and oil trade for major exporters.
Image shows R. K. Pachauri (right), chair of the IPCC, at the presentation of the synthesis document in Copenhagen on November 2, with United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon.
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