IPCC Working Group II Report

[silkman]

So the much trailed WGII report is out after a week of discussions in Yokohama and is receiving in depth coverage by the BBC here in the UK.

As ever, the Beeb is doing a decent job in communicating the seriousness of the situation picking up John Kerry's quote that the cost of inaction would be catastrophic:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26824943

Nonetheless they still feel the need to give the "balanced" view and the only interview I've seen has been with Richard Tol, the economist who asked for his name to be removed from the report:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26822868

Tol is now inevitably a hero on WUWT. Why is it that even the informed media feel it necessary to feed the trolls?

[Anne]

Or indeed, feed the Tols?

My reaction was the same as yours.

[CraigsIsland]

People embracing Tol should really look at what his arguments are and then coming to a conclusion. I'm sure there are people out there going "this is an economist- he is THE authority on Climate Change as it pertains to everything paintbrush". "Perhaps there are some localized benefits to climate change that affect perhaps a little bit of the population in a positive way but overall it's probably going to be really bad for a lot of people."

Nice of Kerry to say something but; That's a politicians viewpoint of the interpretation on the report. I don't really care about that. Hopefully some other people will care about that. I'd rather see politicians DO something about carbon sources.

[idunno]

Full report available from this link...

http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/

The Summary for Policy Makers is only about 30 pages.

This may be a direct link...

http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/IPCC_WG2AR5_SPM_Approved.pdf

Polar regions is Chapter 28...

http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/WGIIAR5-Chap28_FGDall.pdf

[ChrisReynolds]

"Perhaps there are some localized benefits to climate change that affect perhaps a little bit of the population in a positive way but overall it's probably going to be really bad for a lot of people."

Following the Black Death, conditions for the serfs (those working the land under the 'landed gentry') improved substantially. The Black Death killed so many of the serfs that their employers had to allow better conditions to get them to stay, especially as there was by then a lot of land going for whoever wanted it, land previously owned by people killed by the plague.

So those saying there will be benefits are bound to be correct, some will do nicely out of climate change, just like some did nicely out of the Black Death (which killed 1/3 of Europe's population).

[ChrisReynolds]

By the way, according to Source Watch, Prof Richard Tol is an adviser to the Global Warming Policy Foundation - I for one am ignoring everything he says, his association makes him a denialist.

Scroll to the bottom of this page:
http://www.thegwpf.org/who-we-are/academic-advisory-council/

[silkman]

Intriguing that Tol was in Yokohama and even joined the contributors for the usual group photo:

http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/contributors/

Towards the back on the left - white shirt and beard.

[silkman]

Just like the ocean in the Eastern Pacific the debate on the role of climate change sceptics is hotting up here in the UK.

While Bob Ward of the prestigious Grantham Institute on Climate Change takes an enormous swipe at Richard Tol's research and his contribution to the WGII report on the Climate Change blog (http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/another-one-bites-dust-and-another-one.html), the London Times this morning is reporting comments from Labour MP Andrew Miller who chairs the  Commons Science and Technology Committee.

Miller is suggesting that the BBC should give less airtime to climate sceptics and provocatively commented that when Nigel Lawson's super sceptic Global Warming Policy Foundation is involved "at the very least put a caption at the bottom of the screen: The Global Warming Policy Foundation's views are not accepted by 97% of scientists."

The piggy in the middle joining up the dots is, of course, Matt (aka Viscount) Ridley who also incidentally uses the Times as a bully pulpit to advance the sceptic views of Lawson's Foundation.

Miller's Commons Committee report also states that the Government is "failing to clearly and effectively communicate climate science to the public" and he names Evironment Secretary Owen Paterson as one of the ministers deviating from the Government line on Climate Change.

It's all good Punch and Judy British politics of course with Miller using his Select Committee Chair to put the boot into the Coalition government but I hope it will keep the issue of appropriate balance in the public eye.

In the meantime I took my grandchildren to enjoy 20C sunshine in the park yesterday - not bad at 500 feet above sea level just south of Manchester on April 1st.  Maybe Tol's right - the benefits out weight the risks!

[idunno]

Andrew Freedman, who has moved desk, has written a typically excellent piece, here...

http://mashable.com/2014/03/31/key-findings-un-climate-science-report/

[idunno]

Tolgate?

http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.fr/2014/04/another-one-bites-dust-and-another-one.html

[JimD]

It being a given that the new report is an extremely conservative document, it is fair to say that its use is not in any way related to furthering the science of AGW. 

Therefore what exactly is it good for?

Well the reason it is conservative in many respects is that influence due to politics (wili will like me saying that). 

I think that the most significant use of the report will be by conservatives around the world to stop, delay and cancel initiatives related to stopping the progression of global warming.  The report is ideally structured and worded to be useful to this effect.

To wit: the most important item in the entire report (and likely by far the most wrong) is what it says about the costs related to an increase in temperatures.  A quote from another blog:

Imagine the glee, then, that the sceptics (and their strident backers in the media) had when the final draft IPCC report landed for governments to pick over for approval.

Despite the litany of risks, economic costs were assessed to be a modest 0.2-2 per cent of gross domestic product. And that range wasn’t just at the 2 degree “guardrail” increase in temperatures the world’s leading nations had pledged to keep within, but at 2.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

However, in what passes as a slapdown in the diplomatic niceties of the United Nations overseeing the IPCC, the 0.2-2 per cent range by the final report is “presented in a way that is much more nuanced, and I believe, much more useful”, co-chair of the report, Stanford professor Chris Field, told Australian journalists.

The nuance, it has to be said, is not very subtle. The section on economics in the Summary for Policymakers starts with an added qualification: “Global economic impacts from climate change are difficult to estimate.”

It goes on: “Economic impact estimates... depend on a large number of assumptions, many of which are disputable, and many estimates do not account for catastrophic changes, tipping points, and many other factors.”

And the nuanced bit: “With these recognised limitations, the incomplete estimates of global annual economic losses for additional temperature increases of ~2°C are between 0.2 and 2.0 per cent of income.” (Italics added).

“Losses are more likely than not to be greater, rather than smaller, than this range. (Italics in the original.)

There could not be a better piece of ammunition to the denier camp than the bolded statement above, whether misunderstood or not.  If all it costs to deal with AGW is 0.2 TO 2 % of GDP then IT IS STUPID TO EVEN DO ANYTHING about it.  If it is 10% some would still feel that way.  There is no significant change coming for a long time yet no matter what else happens with the Arctic ice or global temperatures in the next couple of years.

[idunno]

The Tolgate saga continues here, with interesting links...

http://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/some-thoughts-or-not/

...and here...

http://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2014/04/07/the-tolgate-saga/

The best response to the various press reactions from the Telegraph, the WSJ, The Spectator, finally proving beyond doubt that carrots DO improve the eyesight...

http://rabett.blogspot.fr/2014/04/rtfwsb.html

[RaenorShine]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26922661

The world needs a Plan B on climate change because politicians are failing to reduce carbon emissions, according to a UN report.

It warns governments if they overshoot their short-term carbon targets they will have to cut CO2 even faster in the second half of the century to keep climate change manageable.

If they fail again, they will have to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere.

I'm not sure what report this is referring to though, the next IPCC one? The BBC article is not that brilliant switching between calling it a UK and UN report.

This could be achieved by burning wood and capturing the CO2 emissions.

Why not just bury charcoal?

[idunno]

Hi Raenor,

That's a leak from WGIII, which is due for release next week or so.

Further info:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/apr/07/ipcc-un-climate-change-mitigation-wg3-worsen-geoengineering

[RaenorShine]

Thanks idunno. The BBC is good at putting out these stories, not always so good at linking back to the original research (as is a lot of mainstream media!)

They've fixed the UN/UK confusion by the looks of things as well.

[silkman]

Richard Tol's very public withdrawal from the WG11 process on the basis that the report underestimated the potential short term benefits of modest climate change was used widely by sceptics, including Matt Ridley, to undermine the important conclusions of the report.

Tol's position, based on his own research, was challenged at the time of the report but analytical work  by Grant McDermott has now challenged the key conclusion of Tol's 2009 paper:

http://stickmanscorral.blogspot.no/2014/04/on-economic-consensus-and-benefits-of.html

As a result and as reported by Tenney Baumer on his Climate Change blog, Tol (to his credit - Baumer's words) has published a correction to his conclusion:

http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/richard-tol-loses-claim-to-fame-now.html

So, surprise, surprise, he presumably now acknowledges that the current scientific consensus does not support the short term economic benefit of climate change. But on his own blog Tol shows little sign of a change of heart on the subject of the IPCC:

http://richardtol.blogspot.nl/2014/04/ipcc-again.html

[silkman]

Ask not for whom the bell Tol's?

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/apr/30/economics-clear-need-climate-action#comments