Who are the IPCC?

The Background
Earlier this year, a 'scandal' broke out over the inaccurate claim made by an influential body called the IPCC that, due to global warming, the Himalayan glaciers could be gone by 2035. Fast-forward to August 29th and a review committee set-up by the UN in the wake of that scandal, issues a report that recommends many reforms for the IPCC but also praises them for their work generally.

So who are the IPCC?
IPCC stands for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It was set-up by the UN in 1988 to look at the risks of climate change and publish reports detailing the potential impacts, options for adaptation and/or ways to lessen the impact. It doesn't actually do any research itself but has the know-how to gather together anything relevant from the research going on around the world.

The reports are used by many governments to form their policies towards climate change like planning flood defences and setting carbon emission targets.

The mistake
The last major report was published in 2007 and was 3000 pages long with an 'executive summary' for people who haven't the time to read the main report. It was this main report that contained the gaff about those glaciers, but this was based on a comment made by a single scientist in a magazine interview back in 1999! The IPCC's own rules should have ensured that the comment was checked before inclusion but it slipped through. The prediction was not only wrong, it was badly wrong: It has been calculated that it would actually take at least 300 years before the glaciers disappeared, not 30 or so.

An embarassing mistake for sure. Particularly from such an influential organisation.

The Politics
Climate change deniers hate that influence and want the IPCC disbanded. They were no doubt hoping that this mistake would be their downfall. Instead, they have to be content with the review group's list of criticisms.

In truth, this review will probably do the IPCC a lot of good: In today's new reality, they and their work need to be above reproach. They have now been presented with the framework to do just that. Put it in place and they're likely to come out stronger and even more influential.

That is just what the World needs for the challenging times ahead.

Geoengineering? Are You Kidding?!!

Apparently some influential people are giving serious thought to something called 'geoengineering' to meet the challenge of climate change.

What is geoengineering? According to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control) it's about "options that would involve large-scale engineering of our environment in order to combat or counteract the effects of changes in atmospheric chemistry". For example, pumping vast quantities of sulphur into the atmosphere to cool the Earth down, or seeding the oceans with masses of iron in order to encourage plankton to take up more CO2. More examples and detail here.

There are many problems with this sort of thing (See the link above for a list) but my main objections are: a) Will we really know what we're doing? We have such a bad record on influencing Nature, how can we predict the ultimate outcome? We could end up make matters even worse; b) Most forms of geoengineering (including the ones I've mentioned) would undermine efforts to reduce carbon emissions, and encourage a business-as-usual attitude to using our planet as a toilet. They're not solutions, they just papering over the cracks.

At this point, you're probably thinking that geoengineering is just science fiction. However, it is seriously being looked at by governments, groups, and wealthy individuals right now. The U.S. has already carried out testing on the idea of dumping iron in the oceans, whilst the Russians are experimenting with spraying aerosols into the atmosphere to cause localised weather effects.

Nervous? You should be. Geoengineering is like a Pandora's Box: Once we open it, we may regret it for generations to come.

The BBC Looks At the Climate Change Debate

The long running and much respected BBC documentary series Panorama took a look at Climate Change this week in a program entitled "What's up with the weather?". It makes for an interesting summary of the current state of play.

You can find it here on-line for a week until about the 4th/5th of July. [UPDATE: It will now be available until 28th June 2011!]

For those haven't got the time to watch the 30 minute program or didn't get to view it in time, this is a summary:

• The first half of the program goes into public opinion on the debate: That a sizeable proportion of the public ( 40% in Britain) have doubts that climate change is happening. The reasons given are various like the recent bad winter, 'climate-gate', unreliable weather forecasts, and the IPCC's mistake in saying that Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035.

• They also touched upon how heated and personal the debate had become between the two sides of the debate.

• In the second half of the program, they went to the experts on both sides to find out where they actually differed. Surprisingly, they agree that climate change is happening, that Mankind is a part of that, the Greenhouse Effect is real, and CO2 is the reason. Where they differ is over how much we're influencing climate change (Though even the sceptics say the majority think we are having a large effect) and what we should do about it. Sceptics say we shouldn't bother spending huge amounts on cutting emissions and should be putting our efforts into R&D and adapting to the change.

So it all comes down to what we think the future will bring and what we should do about it. Do we gamble the lives of future generations on the minority scientific view or work on seeing off the threat predicted by the majority?