Global Warming Is Not Slowing, Says Weather Agency
By ANDREW C. REVKIN and JAMES KANTER
Published: December 8, 2009
COPENHAGEN — Despite recent fluctuations in global temperature year to year, which fueled claims of global cooling, a sustained global warming trend shows no signs of ending, according to new analysis by the World Meteorological Organization made public on Tuesday.
The decade of the 2000s is very likely the warmest decade in the modern record, dating back 150 years, according to a provisional summary of climate conditions near the end of 2009, the organization said.
The period from 2000 through 2009 has been “warmer than the 1990s, which were warmer than the 1980s and so on,” said Michel Jarraud, the secretary general of the international weather agency, speaking at a news conference at the climate talks in Copenhagen.
The international assessment largely meshes with an interim analysis by the National Climatic Data Center and NASA in the United States, both of which independently estimate global and regional temperature and other weather trends.
Mr. Jarraud also said that 2009, with some uncertainty because several weeks remain, appears to be the fifth warmest year on record.
Addressing questions raised about the reliability of climate data after the unauthorized release of e-mail messages and files from a British climate research unit that provides data to the global weather group, he said there was no evidence that the various independent estimates showing a warming world were in doubt.
The news conference early Tuesday came after the European Commission reacted to a decision by the United States Environmental Protection Agency to pave the way for federal limits on emissions of carbon dioxide, saying it should give further impetus to negotiations under way here aimed at crafting a new global agreement to curb greenhouse gases.
The so-called endangerment finding by the E.P.A. was “an important signal by the Obama administration that they are serious about tackling climate change and are demonstrating leadership,” a spokesman from the European Commission said. The finding “gives new momentum following their announcement of cuts,” he said.
Political leaders in Copenhagen welcomed the ruling, but they were quick to press the Obama administration to do more now to sweeten its offer.
Andreas Carlgren, the environment minister of Sweden, the country that currently holds the rotating presidency of the E.U., said in an e-mail message on Tuesday morning that the ruling “shows that the United States can do more than they have put on the table.”
Connie Hedegaard, the Danish politician who was elected on Monday as president of the conference, said in an e-mail message on Tuesday morning that the ruling in the United States “is a helpful step, as it could provide a larger degree of flexibility in the negotiations.” So far President Barack Obama has signaled a cut emissions by about 17 percent by 2020 compared to 2005 levels. The White House also has indicated that the United States would contribute to a fund to tackle climate change.
The gathering of more than 190 nations in Copenhagen opened on Monday with appeals for urgent action from the United Nations and from officials of countries endangered by warmer temperatures, rising sea levels and other damage such as melting glaciers.
As the climate meeting got under way on Tuesday morning, inside the vast blocks that make up the conference center, environmental groups already were chanting in favor of preservation of forests and handing out symbolic cardboard cutouts labeled as carbon dioxide in the central area.
Representatives from governments said there would be further ceremonial events before the hard negotiating begins, later on Tuesday.
A major reason that hopes have risen in recent weeks is the expectation that Mr. Obama — who plans to attend closing days of the conference next week — will formally commit the United States to making cuts in greenhouse gases. The United States declined to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, a previous agreement on curbing greenhouse gases, because of strong opposition in the Senate and from the Bush administration.
The refusal to ratify the Kyoto protocol has left a lingering mistrust of the United States in other parts of the world. The finding by the E.P.A. is expected to allow President Obama to tell delegates in Copenhagen that the United States is moving aggressively to address the problem even while Congress remains stalled on broader legislation to curb global warming legislation.
Senator Barbara Boxer of California, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said that in light of the ruling, “the president’s appearance in Copenhagen will carry even more weight, because it shows that America is taking this issue very seriously and is moving forward.”
Over the next two weeks, the nations gathered in Copenhagen will try to reach what has so far been elusive common ground on the issue of climate change.
Delegates will try to hammer out some of the most vexing details attending the pursuit of a global climate deal. These include broad cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, particularly from big polluters like the United States and China, and a commitment from wealthy nations to deliver what could ultimately be hundreds of billions of dollars in financing to poor countries, which argue that they are ill equipped to deal with a problem they did little to create.
Several countries announced new emissions goals in the days leading up to the meeting here, including China, Brazil, the United States and more recently India and South Africa. But many conference participants have noted that these commitments remain far too low to keep rising temperatures in check over coming decades.
The pledges so far are “not going to get us as far we need to go, to really stay within the two-degree limit,” Koko Warner, an observer with the United Nations University in Bonn, Germany, said Monday, referring to scientists’ recommendations that temperature increases be capped at two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.
“We don’t want to admit it, because the consequences are so bad,” she said.
nytimes.com
Current Decade on Track to Be Warmest on Record
Associated Press
COPENHAGEN -- This decade is on track to become the warmest since records began in 1850, and 2009 could rank among the top-five warmest years, the U.N. weather agency reported Tuesday on the second day of a pivotal 192-nation climate conference.
In some areas -- central Africa and southern Asia -- this will probably be the warmest year, but overall 2009 will "be about the fifth-warmest year on record," said Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization.
Only the U.S. and Canada experienced cooler conditions than average, it said, although Alaska had the second-warmest July on record.
The U.N. agency noted an extreme heat wave in India in May and a heat wave in northern China in June. It said parts of China experienced their warmest year on record, and that Australia so far has had its third-warmest year. Extremely hot weather was also more frequent and intense in southern South America.
The decade 2000-2009 "is very likely to be the warmest on record, warmer than the 1990s, than the 1980s and so on," Mr. Jarraud told a news conference, holding up a chart with a temperature curve pointing upward.
The data were released as negotiators at the two-week talks in Copenhagen worked Tuesday to craft a global deal to step up efforts to stem climate change, digging into the dense technicalities of "metrics" and "gas inventories." Governments, meanwhile, jockeyed for position leading up to the finale late next week, when more than 100 national leaders, including President Barack Obama, will converge on Copenhagen for the final days of bargaining.
Scientists say without an agreement to wean the world away from fossil fuels and other pollutants to greener sources of energy, the Earth will face the consequences of ever-rising temperatures: The extinction of plant and animals, the flooding of coastal cities, more extreme weather, more drought and the spread of diseases.
If 2009 ends as the fifth-warmest year, it would replace the year 2003. According to the U.S. space agency NASA, the other warmest years since 1850 have been 2005, 1998, 2007 and 2006. NASA says the differences in readings among these years are so small as to be statistically insignificant.
The U.N. climate agency said the global combined sea and land surface temperatures for January-October 2009 was estimated at 0.44 degrees C (0.79 degrees F) above the 1961-1990 annual average of 14.00 degrees C (57.2 degrees F). The report had a margin of error of plus or minus 0.11 degrees C, and final data will be released early in 2010.
On Monday, when the climate conference opened, the Obama administration gave the talks a boost by announcing steps that could lead to new U.S. emissions controls that don't require the approval of the U.S. Congress.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said scientific evidence clearly shows that greenhouse gases "threaten the public health and welfare of the American people" and that the pollutants -- mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels -- should be reduced, if not by Congress then by the agency responsible for enforcing air pollution.
As Congress considers the first U.S. legislation to cap carbon emissions, the EPA finding will enable the Obama administration to act on greenhouse gases without congressional action, potentially imposing federal limits on climate-changing pollution from cars, power plants and factories.
The announcement gave Mr. Obama a new card in what is expected to be tough bargaining next week at the climate conference. In preparation, Mr. Obama met with former Vice President Al Gore, who won a Nobel for his climate change efforts, at the White House on Monday.
European climate change officials welcomed the U.S. move. "This is meaningful because it is yet a sign that the Americans have more to offer. My evaluation is that the U.S. can offer much more," EU environment spokesman Andreas Carlgren told reporters Tuesday in Stockholm.
Yvo de Boer, U.N. climate chief, said the EPA finding gives Mr. Obama "something to fall back on." "I think that will boost people's confidence" at the Copenhagen talks in the Americans' ability to offer more, he said.
The European Union has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020, compared with 1990, and is considering raising that to 30% if other governments also aim high. Climate change will be high on the agenda at an EU summit this Thursday and Friday in Brussels.
The European Union had called for a stronger bid by the Americans, who thus far have pledged emissions cuts much less ambitious than Europe's. The U.S. has offered a 17% reduction in emissions from their 2005 level -- comparable to a 3-4% cut from 1990 levels. |
