FACTBOX - UN Climate Change Panel to Issue Report Feb. 2
Date: 24-Jan-07
Country: INTERNATIONAL
Following are some facts about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC):
- The IPCC was set up in 1988 by the United Nations to help policy-makers address climate change. It draws on work by about 2,500 specialists.
- The new report, the IPCC's fourth assessment, is set to conclude that it is "very likely" that human activities, led by burning fossil fuels, are the main cause of warming in the past 50 years, scientific sources said. "Very likely" means a 90-99 percent probability.
- A 2001 study said there was "new and stronger evidence" linking human activities to rising temperatures. It also said it was "likely" that human activities caused most of the warming in the last half century -- "likely" means a 66-90 percent chance.
- In 1995, the IPCC report concluded that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate". That report paved the way to the UN's Kyoto Protocol in 1997, which obliges 35 industrial nations to cut greenhouse gases to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
- The first report in 1990 outlined risks of rising temperatures and played a role in prompting governments to agree a 1992 UN climate convention that set a non-binding goal of stabilising greenhouse gases at 1990 levels by 2000. That target was not met overall.
- Concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, largely from burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and vehicles, have risen by more a third since before the Industrial Revolution.
- Temperatures rose by about 0.6 Celsius (1.1 Fahrenheit) during the 20th century. The 10 warmest years since records began in the 1850s have been since 1994.
- Rising temperatures are likely to cause more floods, erosion, desertification, heatwaves, drive many species to extinction and raise global sea levels. Benefits in some regions may include longer growing seasons.