Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable
time periods'. The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between 'climate change'
attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition and 'climate
variability' attributable to natural causes (IPCC, 2004: 4).
Climate change seems to be hitting the headlines more frequently than ever. The
scientific, political and ethical debates about the nature and causes of the climate
crisis have always been intense and sometimes fraught. A number of highly accessible
and well-respected books (Flannery, 2005; Lynas, 2005, 2007; Monbiot, 2006;
Pearce, 2006), together with some important and widely seen documentaries, such
as Al Gore's Oscar-winning
An Inconvenient Truth
, Franny Armstrong's
The Age
of Stupid
and Hollywood films such as
The Day After Tomorrow
, have helped foster
general awareness and understanding. NGO campaigns like Friends of the Earth's
The Big Ask
, government-sponsored public communication strategies, and increased
news and current affairs coverage of climate science and related issues, including in
conservative journals such as
The Economist
, which published a special report
on business and climate change in June 2007, have had their impact too. The UK
Treasury's 2006 Stern Review and everyday observations and comments by ordinary
people that spring is happening earlier or the expected rains are not coming and
weather 'events' are seemingly more extreme have made global warming and the
environment move close to the top of many national political agendas. The Inter-
governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has steadily become a very significant
player in this. Established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the IPCC's role, according
to its governing principles approved in 1998, is as follows:
The IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis
the scientific, technical and socioeconomic information relevant to understanding
the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts,
and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with
respect to policy, although they may need to deal objectively with scientific,
technical and socioeconomic factors relevant to the application of particular
policies.
Review is an essential part of the IPCC process. Since the IPCC is an
intergovernmental body, review of IPCC documents should involve both peer
review by experts and review by governments.
The IPCC does not conduct research of its own but periodically synthesizes
and evaluates the state of knowledge on climate change. It produces a range of
synthesis, special, technical and methodology reports and, because of its scope and
international status, its findings are critically scrutinized by NGOs, the media,
businesses, lobby groups, governments and ordinary citizens. For example, the Global
Climate Coalition founded in 1989, with early supporters including Amoco, the
American Forest and Paper Association, the American Petroleum Institute, Chrysler,
Exxon, Ford, General Motors, Shell and Texaco, organized advertising and public
relations (PR) campaigns to cast doubt on scientific findings linking fossil fuel use
to climate change, and lobbied aggressively at international climate negotiations to
prevent meaningful agreements. By 2000, however, the Global Climate Coalition
could no longer effectively deny the growing evidence of anthropogenic climate
