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Members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are negotiating what many observers believe will be their most dire report yet
Climate change is real, it is already here and its consequences may be worse than anticipated, say early drafts of an upcoming report from an international group of climate scientists. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is set to release a summary of the report—its fourth on the state of global warming since the group was formed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) in 1988—on Friday, and the news is bleak.
The body of several thousand atmospheric scientists, climatologists, glaciologists, oceanographers and other scientists, hailing from 154 countries, are more certain than ever that humanity is to blame for global warming, which may be linked to odd events like trees blossoming in the Luxembourg Garden here in the middle of winter. The consensus stems from new evidence—among other things, proxies that extend the climate record back in time and six more years among the hottest ever recorded—brought forward since the last assessment in 2001. And it is unanimous, including the U.S. and other previously skeptical governments.
