Compilation: CON JOB – Part 3: Problems with IPCC reports, and why the supposed +2°C danger threshold / carbon budget frame is ALREADY catastrophically assured to be the greatest collective fraud / betrayal ever perpetrated against humanity and most life

Contents (Click links to jump scroll.)

Intro

In CON JOB part 1, climateye explained what the IPCC is, and why their epic climate reports are — for some good, but also some very unfortunate, reasons — so important / influential.

Part 2 detailed eco-S’s 12 most essential takeaways from the first instalment (WG1: The Physical Science Basis) of the latest uber IPCC assessment (AR5, 2013/2014), and exposed numerous, soon to be catastrophically evident, exclusions / underestimates and leaps of logic / observable reality.

Part 3 (below) is an attempt to summarize:

• the various problems with the IPCC / reports / process;
• why the supposed +2ºC (+3.6ºF) ‘danger threshold’ is incorrect / far too high;
• why the ‘global carbon budget’ / ‘climate math’ frame (based on the incorrect / far too high +2ºC ‘danger threshold’) is nonsensical and ALREADY catastrophically assured to be the greatest collective fraud / betrayal ever perpetrated against humanity and most life.

Along with additional detail, several points made in CON JOB part 1 and 2 are repeated throughout part 3. This is intentional for 3 reasons:

• many of the same or similar points apply to different topics;
• each major section is intended to be thorough enough to stand alone;
• with all the noise out there, we often don’t retain — let alone trust / believe — information until we’ve heard or read it many, many times.

Thanks for your indulgence, and for your willingness to consider this difficult material. I can attest that it’s no day at Clown Camp, Woofstock or (insert your own contrary event / activity here) to compile.

Problems with the IPCC / reports / process

As outlined in CON JOB part 1, epic in their scale, scope, consensus-based standard and method of scrutiny, and line-by-line intergovernmental approval (of the Summaries for Policymakers, SPMs), since inception, the IPCC reports have been the primary basis for policymakers, politicians, governments and business leaders in the development of corporate strategies, all international (U.N.) climate negotiations and, now, toward a (supposed) new climate deal in 2015. (See: Compilation: UN climate talks: Betrayal of life.)

But here are reasons why the IPCC / reports / process is / are a dangerous and monumental underestimate of the state of world climate and its rapid, human-induced decay:

1) For the most part, IPCC reports continue to be the agreed upon international parameter of consideration for most of the entities noted above, despite considerable evidence, both modeled and observed, that the uncertain influence of feedback mechanisms / imminence of multiple tipping points (3 of 9 planetary boundaries are already thought to have been passed), the risk of irreversible, ‘runaway‘ momentum and potential sudden, abrupt climate shifts, and the clear, present, acceleration of dangerous impacts that are in advanced stages RIGHT NOW, are all far more immediate and dire threats than the IPCC presents.

► 1.1) They’ve moved the peak emissions goalposts

In 2007, the IPCC (AR4) warned that, at the very latest, greenhouse (heat-trapping) gas (GHG) emissions would have to peak by 2015 in order to attempt to avoid a +2°C global average temperature increase above pre-industrial (pre-1900) levels, which in 2009 was (officially) deemed to be the ‘danger threshold’ that governments agreed to (somehow) prevent because it would, in theory, result in irreversible, ‘runaway‘ catastrophe. Now, the latest IPCC report (AR5, 2013/2014) states that these emissions must peak by 2020, not 2015. Yet the situation has only worsened / accelerated since 2007 and, at a mere +0.85°C, we are ALREADY witness to massive changes (breakdown, disruption, destabilization), well ahead of most previous IPCC predictions. While science *should* guide policy, it would seem that policy has manipulated the science. For more about what ensues at given levels of temperature, see: Why the +2ºC ‘danger threshold’ is far to high further down (jump scroll).

► 1.2) +2.4°C already locked in?

In 2009, a major scientific update to the 2007 IPCC report that was conceived in the lead up to the (failed) Dec. 2009, COP15 UN Copenhagen climate summit — the Scientific Congress on Climate Change Synthesis Report (March, 2009) — concluded that (due to the 30-40-year latent heat lag in the climate system) a rise of +2ºC to +2.4ºC was already assured / locked in / unavoidable (pg 18).

► 1.3) CO2 concentrations

As explained in CON JOB part 2, CO2 is cumulative. Doesn’t go away over the short term. And 15 to 40% of it persists for 1,000+ years (see more here). As a result, concentrations — and their clear, present, accelerated impacts — can ONLY be levelled off (let alone, reduced) once emissions STOP / return to ZERO, because ANY further releases, even if at reduced amounts and rates, will continue to increase the total accumulation and worsen what are ALREADY drastic consequences.

Even if we could halt all GHG emissions this minute, a 30 to 40-year lag between their release and the lifetime of a major proportion of the CO2 they contain (the primary source of momentum based on the time it takes for that energy to force itself into the climate system / 90% oceans) would continue to heat up the planet for decades. AND any reduction from a future peak (if a ‘runaway’ tip was somehow avoided) would take hundreds of years.

The 2013/2014 AR5 WG1 report says CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are at their highest levels in 800,000 years. But some studies argue they might be at their highest levels in 1 million, 3 million, 15 million, or even 25 million, years.

Current CO2 concentration level rates of increase are at the top of the IPCC’s (very conservative, underestimated) worst-case, business-as-usual projection (RCP8.5, which is one of 4 examined potential scenarios). It estimates a range from +2.6°C to +4.8°C of heating since pre-industrial times (pre-1900) by 2100.

AND some anticipate the vicinity of +4ºC to be very plausible as soon as 2055 or the 2060s, a possibility that has been described as not only catastrophic, but incompatible with organized civilization to the point that as little as 10% of humanity could survive. And not pleasantly. And not for long because +4ºC soon leads to +5ºC, then +6ºC. Other studies postulate up to +8ºC by 2100.

By the way, the projected *rate* of temperature change for THIS century is greater — and at least 10 times faster — than that of any extended global heating period over the past 65 million years, when somewhere between 75 and 95 per cent of all species alive at the time were rendered extinct.

► 1.4) Arctic meltdown

The latest IPCC report states that Arctic sea ice melt is ‘unprecedented’ in 1,450 years, and that Summer sea ice could be gone by 2050. Yet global heating and climate disruption have ALREADY forced Arctic sea ice into a new state of ‘death spiral’ meltdown that is anticipated to disappear in Summer months within 10 years, many decades ahead of previous — and current — IPCC estimates. This source explains that the Arctic hasn’t been ice-free for somewhere between 1,450 and 4,000 years, and before that, for about 120,000 years. And a new study concludes that the last time Arctic temps were this warm was at least 44,000 and perhaps as many as 120,000 years ago. (See Compilation: Arctic meltdown / methane time bomb.)

► 1.5) The current rate of ocean acidification

is the highest in 50 million years, and accelerating, says the IPCC. But a 2013 report released after the IPCC submission cut-off date postulates that ocean acidification from carbon emissions may be at its highest level in 300 MILLION YEARS (and in a state of rapid acceleration). So it should be of considerable alarm that the IPCC reports, upon which all international climate negotiations have been based and are limited to, did not even address this urgent threat to ALL ocean life within mere decades (and, therefore, ALL land life as well) until the latest 2013/2014 releases. (See Compilation: Ocean acidification.)

► 1.6) Sea level rise

Doubled estimates? Yes, their previous assessment (AR4, 2007) was THAT off base!  But with numerous experts who fear that global average sea level could rise CATASTROPHIC METRES by 2100, and based on studies of the last geological era that saw atmospheric concentrations as high as they are RIGHT NOW and warn that we may have already assured TENS OF METRES long-term, the IPCC is still WAY ‘under’ (at least 1-2 metres this century, as much as 27 metres long-term). (See Compilation: Sea level rise.)

“Climate scientists not involved in writing the new report said the authors had made a series of cautious choices in their assessment of the scientific evidence. Regarding sea level rise, for instance, they gave the first firm estimates ever contained in an intergovernmental panel report, declaring that if emissions continued at a rapid pace, the rise by the end of the 21st century could be as much as three feet. They threw out a string of published papers suggesting a worst-case rise closer to five feet.” ~ J. Gillis, NY Times

► 1.7) Climate sensitivity

refers to estimations of how hot the planet is anticipated to become when various feedbacks that affect global climate are accounted for. It is most often expressed as the global average surface and lower atmosphere temperature change increase (in degrees Celsius, °C) associated with a doubled concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) compared to pre-industrial / pre-1900 levels (from 280 ppmv to 560 ppmv – parts per million volume). Long thought to be somewhere between +1.5°C and +4.5°C, +3°C has been the most common / agreed upon ‘best’ guess of several previous IPCC reports, and the metric utilized in most computer climate models.

But these figures — and the latest IPCC conclusions, the ensemble of climate models on which they are based, and most other climate models — are limited to “fast feedbacks” ONLY (water vapour, clouds, sea ice, aerosols — reflective particles that hang in the atmosphere) and exclude the influences of “slow (longer-term) feedbacks” (ice sheets — an icy surface reflects more heat than a dark surface, greenhouse gases — heat force frees buried gases from the oceans, permafrost melt / thaw — which leads to methane release, etc.).

Several recent studies express the probability that the +3°C metric is an underestimate (too low) and that the global climate is not only less likely to be less sensitive, but could be — and is more likely to be — more sensitive (higher).

Revered climate expert Dr. James Hansen (in consort with others, of late) has for several years argued / shown that, when all feedbacks — both fast AND slow — are considered, the Earth system appears to be about TWICE AS SENSITIVE (+6°C).

Yes, it’s all rather complicated, but a doubled sensitivity would be a BIG deal because, a) it would mean the IPCC (along with most computer climate models), on which all international negotiations are based and limited to, is out to lunch / gone to the Zoo, and, b) avoidance of irreversible, ‘runaway‘ impacts would necessitate EMERGENCY consideration of not greater than +1°C / a rapid return to +1°C (or below) as fast as possible once overshot (which is now unavoidable), instead of the current (nonsense and catastrophe-assured) +2°C ‘danger threshold’ / international policy target. (See: Compilation: Climate Sensitivity — coming soon.)

More, informed by climateye associate / supporter / contributor, Dr. Peter D. Carter:

The first IPCC assessment (FAR, 1990) projected based on fast feedbacks only, but did so with a high median and low sensitivity — which told policymakers there was a real risk of a sensitivity of +6°C, double what they now apply. The second assessment (SAR, 1996) used both fast AND slow feedbacks but, by the third (TAR, 2001), only the median of +3°C was used, and has been ever since, even though all assessments have always stated that the upper range could be as high as +4.5°C, and that there was a lot of uncertainty involved.

The big, and main, thing Dr. James Hansen exposed is that, what is referred to as climate sensitivity by the climate model experts is NOT how sensitive the Earth system truly is. This is because the +3°C median (known as the Charney, which ONLY accounts for “fast feedbacks”) was developed to help simplify comparisons between computer models, NOT to estimate how sensitive the climate system would be under constant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions force (heat). Hansen explains that they have always known there are both fast AND slow response feedbacks, and that the true sensitivity (based on BOTH fast AND slow) is +6°C because of the large number of enormous slower amplification sources.

If it were assumed that we only wanted to protect people for 50-100 years, use of fast feedbacks alone *might* have been defensible. But in terms of (the precautionary principle of) risk aversion, which *should* be the core purpose of all assessments — not to mention the irreversibility of many ALREADY present impacts, the certainty that they will accelerate and worsen, the threat of many more over the longer term, the fact that they all become more and more committed to / locked in every day, and are only *potentially* possible to mitigate based on EMERGENCY action NOW, not later — +4.5°C, NOT +3°C, is what should always have been applied.

Yet the (latest) AR5 RCP (future scenario) projections don’t account for ANY carbon feedback amplifications, and ALL of their estimates are based on / limited to the +3°C fast feedbacks only metric. (See: Compilation: Climate Sensitivity coming soon.)

“…the authors went out of their way to include recent papers suggesting that the Earth might be less sensitive to carbon dioxide emissions than previously thought, even though serious questions have been raised about the validity of those estimates. The new report lowered the bottom end of the range of potential warming that could be expected to occur over the long term if the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere were to double, reversing a decision that the panel made in the last report and restoring a scientific consensus that had prevailed from 1979 to 2007. Six years ago, that range was reported as 3.6 to 8.1 degrees Fahrenheit (2.0 to 4.5 degrees Celsius); the new range is 2.7 to 8.1 degrees (Fahrenheit, or 1.5 to 4.5 degrees Celsius).” ~ Justin Gillis, NY Times

► 1.8) Geoengineering (geo-e)

— the deliberate, large-scale, human intervention in / manipulation of the Earth’s natural systems to attempt to counteract global ‘warming’ (heating) and climate ‘change’ (breakdown, disruption, destabilization) — was allotted one paragraph of attention (the last) in the IPCC WG1 Summary for Policymakers (SPM). While geo-e is NOT an alternative to the necessity for an EMERGENCY energy revolution / transition / transformation from our heavily subsidized, fossil fuel-based global economy to one powered by everlasting (non-burning), ‘zero carbon‘ sources (wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, etc.), there is — not now, not ever — NO known way to reduce / reverse the current amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere without geo-e (of some kind, which includes options like reforestation and other current or future potential methods to somehow remove / drawdown GHGs from the air); NO other way on its own that can do enough to restore energy balance to the climate. (Compilation: Geoenginering.)

► 1.9) Many studies that suggest the situation is much worse were excluded

A compromise between what science warns us is necessary and what policymakers (and other forces) consider acceptable, scary as they are, the IPCC reports do NOT fully reflect the true urgency of the crisis and, therefore, do not convey the proportionate scale / scope / pace of action necessary to confront it. Recent studies that argue things are 2, 3, 5, 10 times worse (depending on the specific topic / associated impacts) were NOT included — because they were deemed to be outliers, discounted for other reasons, or were released after the submission cut-off date. (More below.)

2) Contrary to the profound alarm that many well-intentioned participants in the IPCC process feel and seek to communicate, their cautious, conservative, flawed, consensus-based / lowest common denominator and, in large part, out-dated by the time of publication conclusions (based on the boundaries of their mandate, the cut-off date for submissions, political / corporate pressure / influence, denier intimidation, and decisions to exclude key feedback, or self- reinforcing, potential ‘runaway‘, mechanisms in their calculations — like the hyper-potent threat posed by accelerated methane release from permafrost melt) have served as useful impediments to delay the emergency action at emergency speed necessary to confront the climate crisis.

► 2.1) Out of date on arrival

“The IPCC process is slow and unwieldy, and in the face of the rapid climate change we’re now seeing, the summaries are not merely understatements of the problem, they are out of date the moment they’re published.” ~ Joe Romm, Climate Progress

“Research may be taking 5-6 years in its own right.  Then it goes through a publication process, which may be another 18 months to 2 years.  Then it’s in the peer-reviewed publication format, that the intergovernmental panel is allowed to look at.  They can take 18 months to 2 years to go through their editing process to get it into the final report format.  That, then, has to be passed through a conference of the agencies of the governments.  And if they don’t like it, because it hurts their particular country, a particular phrase that is coming out of the scientific community, they will veto it.

So what comes out, particularly in the summary for policy makers (SPM), is that which is acceptable right across the board to the international political scenario, from the science that is about 6 years out of date.  And then that report becomes the basis for negotiations and decision making.  It is grossly inappropriate.  But it is not because scientists are not speaking out, it is because they are profoundly repressed and muzzled in the political economic process that is being used to guard status quo.” ~ Professor David Wasdell, Founder, Gaia Institute, UK (video)

► 2.2) Key absence of positive feedback mechanisms

The 2013 WG1 Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) states that the combination of multiple feedbacks (“non-CO2 forcings”) are NOT accounted for in any of their RCP (future scenario) projections. In fact, NO climate models to date incorporate consideration of the various amplifying and inter-reinforcing Arctic feedbacks (loss of sea ice-albedo, warming northern peatlands, methane release from permafrost melt, methane clathrates from the melt of ocean floors, nitrous oxide feedback, soot), nor do they evaluate their combined impacts.

The methane release from permafrost melt omission alone renders many of the IPCC (and its supposed ‘carbon budget‘) conclusions to be dramatic underestimates. And a new study makes the argument that, at as little as +1.5ºC of global average surface temperature increase (since pre-industrial times / pre-1900 / we’re at +0.85ºC now / +1.5ºC anticipated before or around 2030), the release of large amounts of methane (as much as 100 billion tons — a lot — of carbon by 2100) could become (in climateye’s words) a blow torch accelerator of rapid, unstoppable, irreversible (self-perpetuated / reinforced) heat feedback. (See Compilation: Arctic meltdown / methane time bomb.)

“A key reason the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change keeps issuing instantly irrelevant reports is that it keeps ignoring the latest climate science. We have known for years that perhaps the single most important carbon-cycle feedback is the melting of the permafrost. Yet a must-read new (2012) United Nations Environment Programme report, “Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost” reports this jaw-dropping news:

“The effect of the permafrost carbon feedback on climate has not been included in the IPCC Assessment Reports. None of the climate projections in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report include the permafrost carbon feedback (IPCC 2007). Participating modeling teams have completed their climate projections in support of the Fifth Assessment Report, but these projections do not include the permafrost carbon feedback. Consequently, the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, due for release in stages between September 2013 and October 2014, will not include the potential effects of the permafrost carbon feedback on global climate.”

“Here’s why that is head-exploding:” ~ IPCC’s Planned obsolescence, Joe Romm, CP

► 2.3) Lowest common denominator consensus

Subject to veto, the IPCC reports reflect compromised approval by all involved. They are mandated and revised by government policymakers who toil to soften, re-state and censor / omit content to accomodate their individual agendas, which results in a lowest common denominator that is acceptable to political government agencies across the world and, therefore, renders the IPCC to be a science muzzling organization beholden to the political / economic status quo.

“The IPCC is far from alarmist — on the contrary, it is a highly conservative organization,” … “…The conservatism is built into its consensus structure, which tends to produce a lowest common denominator on which a large number of scientists can agree.” ~ Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

► 2.4) Cautious, conservative, prone to underestimate

IPCC consistently underestimates climate risks, Glenn Sherer, Daily Climate

Across two decades and thousands of pages of reports, the world’s most authoritative voice on climate science has consistently understated the rate and intensity of climate change and the danger those impacts represent, say a growing number of studies…

A comparison of past IPCC predictions against 22 years of weather data and the latest climate science find that the IPCC has consistently underplayed the intensity of global warming in each of its four (now five) major reports released since 1990…

Some climate researchers also worry that recent institutional changes could accentuate the organization’s conservative bias in the fifth IPCC assessment, to be released in parts starting in September 2013…

Oreskes, Oppenheimer and their co-authors argue the conservative bias pervades all of climate science.

But the underestimation by the IPCC is particularly worrisome, scientists say, because the organization is charged specifically with advising policy makers on the most relevant, accurate climate science…

…since that 2007 assessment, numerous observations and studies have shown that the speed and ferocity of climate change are at the extreme edge or outpacing IPCC projections on many fronts, including carbon emissions, temperature rise, continental ice-sheet melt, Arctic sea ice decline, and sea level rise…

…A society blind to the full range of potential outcomes, particularly the most disruptive, can remain apathetic to the need for change, pushing hard decisions off into the future…

…Reforms within the organization have resulted in a more demanding consensus process — one that may produce even greater caution in its conclusions, say several former senior IPCC authors.

IPCC’s internal rules and deadlines have also been tightened, preventing the inclusion of some of the most up-to-date studies…

Penn State’s Mann also feels that IPCC higher-ups, fearful of being attacked by climate skeptics, have “bent over backwards” to allow greater input from contrarians. “There’s no problem in soliciting wide views that fairly represent … a peer group community,” he said. “My worry is that they are stacking the deck, giving greater weight to contrarian views than is warranted by peer-reviewed literature.”…

“This is an urgency that has nothing to do with politics or ideology,” said Somerville. “This urgency is dictated by the biogeochemistry and physics of the climate system. We have a very short time to de-carbonize the world economy and find substitutes for fossil fuels.”

Climate scientists erring on the side of least drama, Dana Nuccitelli, SkepticalScience.com

A paper recently published in Global Environmental Change by Brysse et al. (2012), Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama? examined a number of past predictions made by climate scientists, and found that that they have tended to be too conservative in their projections of the impacts of climate change — global average sea level rise since 1993 by 60%, underestimated or failed to account for CO2 emissions, increased rainfall in already rainy areas, continental ice sheet melting, Arctic sea ice decline, and permafrost melting (quoted from last paragraph of this SS post).

The authors thus suggest that climate scientists are biased toward overly cautious estimates, erring on the side of less rather than more alarming predictions, which they call “erring on the side of least drama” (ESLD)…

While we have recently shown that the IPCC temperature projections have been exceptionally accurate, several other projections in the IPCC reports have been far too conservative…

…climate scientists have tended to systematically under-predict many impacts resulting from climate change…

— in order to avoid accusations of “alarmism” from climate contrarians;
— because scientists are skeptical by nature whereas climate impacts are dramatic;
— and because dramatic claims open scientists to criticism from their peers.

However, the conservative bias imposed by ESLD produces a dangerous result.

“If climate scientists and assessors are erring on the side of least drama in their predictions, then they are not preparing policymakers and the public for the worst, because they are under predicting what the worst outcomes might be.”

► 2.5) Censored

IPCC report summary censored by governments around the world, Nick Miller, Sydney Morning Herald

A major climate report presented to the world was censored by the very governments who requested it, frustrating and angering some of its lead authors…

…entire paragraphs, plus graphs showing where carbon emissions have been increasing the fastest, were deleted from the summary during a week’s debate prior to its release. Other sections had their meaning and purpose significantly diluted. They were victims of a bruising skirmish between governments in the developed and developing world over who should shoulder the blame for, and the responsibility for fixing, climate change…

However several authors said that teams of negotiators sent in by governments had refused to accept controversial parts of the report for inclusion in the summary of policymakers. Their work only survives in the full, technical report, which will be read by far fewer people, and was not released to the media on Sunday.

Some of the economists and scientists involved even considered withdrawing their work entirely, so they could speak without having to toe the eventual IPCC line…

Economist Reyer Gerlagh, of Tilburg University in the Netherlands, was a co-ordinating lead author on a chapter of the report. He saw a lot of his work – exploring the link between economies and their carbon emissions – deleted from the summary over the last week.

“Some governments [said] we cannot write things that they foresee will immediately have consequences in international negotiations,” Professor Gerlagh said. “They cannot change the scientific findings. But they can say there are things that are not [appropriate] to be told at [the SPM / Summary for Policymakers] level…

(More about this kind of thing in section 3 a bit further down.)

► 2.6) Incomprehensible, poorly presented / communicated

The language and graphs / diagrams / illustrations about potential consequences used in the IPCC reports are unclear / confusing / difficult to interpret. The website is poor. The presentation format is, to be kind, dated. And the reports don’t even utilize hyperlinks. There needs to be much greater attention paid to communication and accessibility, and a transformation into a process that better allows updates and specialized reports on a more regular or continuous basis.

U.S. urges IPCC to be less boring, try this whole “online” thing, John Upton, Grist

(Example): “It is very likely that the number of cold days and nights has decreased and the number of warm days and nights has increased on the global scale.”

By using the phrase “very likely,” the scientists mean that there’s a 90 to 99 percent likelihood that the statement is true. But when normal people read “very likely” in a statement like that, they think the IPCC’s scientists are just 55 to 90 percent confident in it, according to the new study, which was published in the journal Nature Climate Change…

“In all samples,” the researchers wrote, “people interpreted the probabilistic pronouncements of the IPCC regressively” — meaning they would underestimate high probabilities and overestimate low ones. The biggest misinterpretations came when the word “very” was used…

This isn’t the first time that the IPCC’s approach to communicating certainty has been found to be flawed. Similar findings were published in 2009 and in 2011. And an independent review of the IPCC pointed out this problem in 2010. But the IPCC persists in using this misleading gibberish. And if that weren’t bad enough, the panel still doesn’t understand how to effectively use the internet. — It’s virtually certain that the IPCC needs to dump its “very likely” crap, John Upton, Grist

“Despite the exhaustive amount of work that goes into producing each of the IPCC’s assessment reports, relatively little effort goes into making the information in those reports easily accessible to the public. The IPCC’s main website is ugly and static, mirroring the dry assessment reports to which it links. The IPCC’s online presence seems designed to meet day-to-day demands for climate information by bureaucrats — and nobody else.”

More

• Post – Virtually certain IPCC needs to dump its “very likely” crap, J. Upton, Grist
• U.S. urges IPCC to be less boring, try this whole “online” thing, John Upton, Grist
• Post – Denier ‘intimidation tactics’ move IPCC to lowball sea level rise and climate sensitivity? Joe Romm, Climate Progress
• Article – A climate alarm, too muted for some, Justin Gillis, NY Times
• Post – Scientists erring on side of least drama, D. Nuccitelli, SkepticalScience.com
• Post – IPCC’s planned obsolescence: 5th assessment report will ignore crucial permafrost carbon feedback, Joe Romm, CP
• Post – IPCC consistently underestimates climate risks, G. Sherer, Daily Climate
• Post – Report: 7 reasons climate change ‘even worse than we thought’, Romm, CP
• Report – 7 reasons climate change is even worse than we thought, New Scientist
• Post – IPCC lowballs likely impacts with instantly out-of-date reports and is clearly clueless on messaging — Should it be booted, or just rebooted? Romm, CP

3) The urgency with which we must transform away from burned, carbon-sourced energy is incompatible with the ‘business as usual‘, endless, unsustainable growth and consumption-reliant, short-term profit and delay-motivated, market mechanism-biased, fossil fuel-addicted / greenhouse gas-intensive global economic paradigm / pathology that the IPCC has been beholden to reinforce.

Excerpt from this brief video (8:30) of Professor David Wasdell, Founder, Apollo-Gaia Project, UK:

So it would be nice to turn scientists into scapegoats, and that’s been a process that’s been ongoing.  But i think there are many pressures that hold this information out of the public domain, and prevent executive action on it.  Not least, the enormous profits made from continued use of fossil energy, and from the economic exploitation of future use of energy to guarantee debt processes in international finance.  And all of these systems crumble into unsustainability if we start putting in appropriate solutions to the current climate crisis.

Excerpts from Professor David Wasdell’s Critical Analysis of problems with the latest IPCC AR5 (2013) Working Group (WG1) report, “The Science Basis”, Summary for Policymakers (SPM), PDF:

Greatest pressure to establish grounds for the highest possible budget came from those countries whose national economy, political power and social stability depend on sustaining the asset value and production revenue derived from exploitation of their resources of fossil energy. Additional pressure was applied to the political agents by those vested interests whose sustained profitability was based on the extraction, refining, marketing and use of fossil energy as the ground of the global economy. PDF page 2

On these grounds the Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC AR5 WG1 should be rejected as not fit for the purpose of policy-making. It is a compromise between what is scientifically necessary and what is deemed to be politically and economically feasible. It is a document of appeasement, in active collusion with the global addiction to fossil sources of energy. PDF page 22

Excerpts from Is the IPCC government approval process broken? — Intro and letter to IPCC Co-Chairs of WG3 (the 3rd report, to be addressed in a future eco-S post) by Professor Robert Stavins, Director, Harvard Environmental Economics Program, and Co-Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) of Chapter 13, “International Cooperation: Agreements and Instruments,” of Working Group III (Mitigation), IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5).

…It has been an intense and exceptionally time-consuming process, which recently culminated in a gruelling week spent in Berlin, Germany, April 5–13, 2014, at the government approval sessions, in which some 195 country delegations discussed, revised and ultimately approved (line-by-line) the “Summary for Policymakers” (SPM), which condenses more than 2,000 pages of text from 15 chapters into an SPM document of 33 pages. Several of the CLAs present with me in Berlin commented that given the nature and outcome of the week, the resulting document should probably be called the “summary by policymakers,” rather than the “summary for policymakers.”

…I want to emphasize that the IPCC’s Working Group III “Technical Summary” and the underlying Working Group III report of 15 chapters were completely untouched by the government approval process of the Summary for Policymakers. So, the crucial IPCC products — the TS and the 15 chapters of WG 3 — retain their full scientific integrity, and they merit serious public attention…

Excerpts from his letter to IPCC WG3 Co-Chairs:

I am writing to you today to express my disappointment and frustration with the process and outcome of the government approval meetings in Berlin this past week, at which the assembled representatives from the world’s governments, considered and, in effect, fundamentally revised or rejected parts of the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of IPCC Working Group 3 over a period of five long days (and nights)…

…as the week progressed, I was surprised by the degree to which governments felt free to recommend and sometimes insist on detailed changes to the SPM text on purely political, as opposed to scientific bases.

…government representatives worked to suppress text that might jeopardize their negotiating stances in international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

…in some cases this turned out to be problematic for the scientific integrity of the IPCC Summary for Policymakers. Such involvement — and sometimes interference — with the scientific process of the IPCC was particularly severe in section SPM.5.2 on international cooperation…

…nearly all delegates in the meeting demonstrated the same perspective and approach, namely that any text that was considered inconsistent with their interests and positions in multilateral negotiations was treated as unacceptable…

…the only way the assembled government representatives would approve text for SPM.5.2 was essentially to remove all “controversial” text (that is, text that was uncomfortable for any one individual government), which meant deleting almost 75% of the text, including nearly all explications and examples under the bolded headings. In more than one instance, specific examples or sentences were removed at the will of only one or two countries, because under IPCC rules, the dissent of one country is sufficient to grind the entire approval process to a halt unless and until that country can be appeased.

…the process the IPCC followed resulted in a process that built political credibility by sacrificing scientific integrity…

4) The IPCC’s primary focus has been on methods of adaptation and mitigation, NOT the essential principles of precaution and risk aversion. Watch this video that went viral a few years ago for a brief (9:34) tutorial that sums up the importance of this point pretty well.

Wikipedia: Precautionary principle:

“The precautionary principle or precautionary approach states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an action.”

“The principle is used by policy makers to justify discretionary decisions in situations where there is the possibility of harm from taking a particular course or making a certain decision when extensive scientific knowledge on the matter is lacking. The principle implies that there is a social responsibility to protect the public from exposure to harm, when scientific investigation has found a plausible risk. These protections can be relaxed only if further scientific findings emerge that provide sound evidence that no harm will result.”

Granted, statements made by IPCC Chairs are often more urgent and dire in tone than those stated in the official report(s), but until the recent release of part 2 (WG2) of the Fifth Assessment (AR5 2013/2014), their conclusions have never been characterized in terms of risk aversion, only in terms of adaptation and mitigation. And even though WG2 uses the word “risk” hundreds of times, it is not (nor has it ever been) with a focus on worst-case scenarios which, one would think, *should be* the whole point.

“As with every recent IPCC report, it is super-cautious to a fault and yet still incredibly alarming…” “…the IPCC is basically a best case analysis — while it largely ignores the business-as-usual case and completely ignores the worst case.” ~ Joe Romm, Climate Progress. (Note: This quote is from a post that reports on the IPCC’s 2nd report, WG2, which climateye will deal with in a future compilation.)

Abrupt threats

Clear, present impacts ALREADY displace / KILL millions each year, and compromise the lives of billions RIGHT NOW. With several key regulatory systems in advanced stages of breakdown / disruption / destabilization, the risks / threats / catastrophic implications of sudden / abrupt / unpredictable / irreversible shifts / tips / flips that can occur over time frames as brief as a few years are ALREADY upon us.

The biggest, most immediate and urgent impacts of the climate crisis EMERGENCY are the threats it ALREADY poses to fresh water availability / quality, food / agriculture production / supply / security and multi-regional insecurity / instability (as a threat multiplier) because these lead to — and increase the likelihood of — the entire range of undesired consequences like famine, disease proliferation, conflict, resource wars, failed states (the number of countries at high risk of disintegration has doubled from 7 to 15 since 2005), mass migration / die-offs / biodiversity loss / extinctions.

Another aspect of this includes economic / energy / power / transport / distribution system disruption from extreme / more frequent / prolonged weather events — heat waves, wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, typhoons, floods, the potential flood / meltdown of one or more nuclear power plants, a nuclear exchange (whether intentional or accidental) as the result of political / social unrest / chaos, extended blackouts (grocery stores only have 3 days of food beyond which we would all become rather desperate), a sudden, widespread disease outbreak / plague, a potential stock market shock or crash in reaction to any individual or combination of the above.

Most of these things have ALREADY occurred on large scales, are more probable to occur in the future, or are in actual progress in multiple regions RIGHT NOW. (See: Compilation: The threat of sudden / abrupt system shifts / tips / flips.)

More uncertainty means more urgency to tackle global warming, Dana Nuccitelli, The Guardian

A new two-part study…examines mathematically what happens to the risks posed by climate change when the scientific uncertainty increases. Part 1 of the study explores two important points.

First, the probable range of climate sensitivity to the increased greenhouse effect isn’t symmetrical. Instead, based on the available evidence and research, it’s more likely that we’ll see a large amount of global warming than a small amount in response to rising carbon emissions. By itself, this means that more climate uncertainty translates into an even bigger risk of painful consequences than relatively benign consequences. More uncertainty means a slightly better chance of the low warming outcomes, but it also means an even bigger chance of the high warming outcomes, because the scientific data have a harder time ruling those out.

The second critical point is that economic models agree that once we reach a certain tipping point, the costs of climate damage increase at an accelerating rate. The models don’t agree on exactly where that tipping point lies, but they do agree on the shape of the curve and the acceleration of the climate damage costs once we pass that tipping point…

Putting all these results together, it indicates that larger climate uncertainty mathematically compels greater urgency to address global warming. This conclusion runs in direct opposition to the claims of climate contrarians, who often argue against taking action to address climate change because they believe there is too much uncertainty to determine the optimal path forward. This argument exhibits a failure to grasp the concepts of basic risk management…

Is climate change humanity’s greatest-ever risk management failure? Dana Nuccitelli, The Guardian

Humans are generally very risk-averse… Climate change seems to be a major exception to this rule. Managing the risks posed by climate change is not a high priority for the public as a whole, despite the fact that a climate catastrophe this century is a very real possibility, and that such an event would have adverse impacts on all of us.

For example, in my job as an environmental risk assessor, if a contaminated site poses a cancer risk to humans of more than 1-in-10,000 to 1-in-1 million, that added risk is deemed unacceptably high and must be reduced. This despite the fact that an American man has a nearly 1-in-2 chance of developing and 1-in-4 chance of dying from cancer (1-in-3 and 1-in-5 for an American woman, respectively).

To that 42 percent chance of an average American developing cancer in his or her lifetime, we’re unwilling to add another 0.001 percent. The reason is simple – we really, really don’t want cancer, and thus consider even a small added risk unacceptable.

Yet we don’t share that aversion to the risks posed by human-caused climate change. These risks include more than half of global species potentially being at risk of extinction, extreme weather like heat waves becoming more commonplace, global food supplies put at risk by this more frequent extreme weather, glaciers and their associated water resources for millions of people disappearing, rising sea levels inundating coastlines…

Uncertainty simply isn’t our friend when it comes to risk. If uncertainty is large, it means that a bad event might not happen, but it also means that we can’t rule out the possibility of a catastrophic event happening. Inaction is only justifiable if we’re certain that the bad outcome won’t happen…

Climate change presents an enormous global risk, not in an improbable one-in-a-million case, but rather in the most likely scenario. From a risk management perspective, our choice could not be clearer. We should be taking serious steps to reduce our impact on the climate via fossil fuel consumption and associated greenhouse gas emissions. But we’re not. This is in large part due to a lack of public comprehension of the magnitude of the risk we face; a perception problem that social scientists are trying to determine how to overcome.

At the moment, climate change looks like humanity’s greatest-ever risk management failure. Hopefully we’ll remedy that failure before we commit ourselves to catastrophic climate consequences that we’re unprepared to face.

Excerpts: Professor David Wasdell

Excerpts from the brief video above (8:30) of Professor David Wasdell, Founder, Apollo-Gaia Project, UK, about the reality — and problems with — the IPCC as a governmental body as opposed to a scientific forum, and how perception is confused in the public domain…

…It’s nice to be able to blame scientists for not shouting loud enough, but if they do they’re call alarmist and bunkered, or they get death threats or their grants are withdrawn or (their) institution gets shut down.

There’s enormous oppression of reality in a civilization that doesn’t want to know what’s coming.  In 2003 we coined the phrase ‘pre-traumatic stress syndrome’… You sense what’s coming at you and you close down … You don’t want to know … You switch off from threatening information psychologically, collectively, and you will target the people who bring you the news, instead of relating to the news and acting appropriately…

…Back in the early 90s, the American gov’t, particularly, realized that the scientists were making a lot of assertions, that they were talking about futures in a way that would threaten the American way of life.  And they were seen as loose cannons.  And the proposal to set up the IPCC, which means the INTERGOVERNMENTAL panel on climate change, came out of the need to provide a consensus and edited version of the scientific analysis where it was acceptable to the political governmental agencies across the world.  It’s essentially a scientific muzzling organization…

…every 3, 4, 5 years, it makes a major assessment report of peer-reviewed literature.  It doesn’t do research on its own, it reviews literature that has come into the domain over that time.  Now let’s think about timelines.

Research may be taking 5-6 years in its own right.  Then it goes through a publication process, which may be another 18 months to 2 years.  Then it’s in the peer-reviewed publication format, that the intergovernmental panel is allowed to look at.  They can take 18 months to 2 years to go through their editing process to get it into the final report format.  That, then, has to be passed through a conference of the agencies of the governments.  And if they don’t like it, because it hurts their particular country, a particular phrase that is coming out of the scientific community, they will veto it.

So what comes out, particularly in the Summary for Policymakers (SPM), is that which is acceptable right across the board to the international political scenario, from the science that is about 6 years out of date.  And then that report becomes the basis for negotiations and decision-making.  It is grossly inappropriate.  But it is not because scientists are not speaking out, it is because they are profoundly repressed and muzzled in the political economic process that is being used to guard status quo.

Now, to maintain stability in the political system, that may be a good idea. When we’re having to deal with a crisis and move collectively and move fast, it’s catastrophic.

We do not have the institutional instruments to respond to this crisis politically or economically.  And when we have major int’l reports that say, this report is a compromise between what is scientifically necessary, and what is politically acceptable, you know you’ve lost the plot, already.

So it would be nice to turn scientists into scapegoats, and that’s been a process that’s been ongoing. But i think there are many pressures that hold this information out of the public domain, and prevent executive action on it.  Not least, the enormous profits made from continued use of fossil energy, and from the economic exploitation of future use of energy to guarantee debt processes in international finance.  And all of these systems crumble into unsustainability if we start putting in appropriate solutions to the current climate crisis.

Excerpt from David Wasdell’s Critical Analysis of problems with the latest IPCC AR5 (2013/2014), Working Group 1 (WG1) report, “The Science Basis”, Summary for Policymakers (SPM), PDF page 2:

The Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC AR5 WG1, was published on 27th September 2013 in Stockholm after four days of intense scrutiny by agents representing the governments of all participating countries. Every word and line of the text previously submitted by the scientific community was examined and amended until it could be endorsed unanimously by the political representatives. The same process also applied to the diagrams and illustrations. Critical comparison between the scientific original and the published outcome of the political process casts light on the editorial interventions that ensured that the Summary for Policymakers was already acceptable to the policy makers prior to publication.

The most intense debate appears to have focussed around Figure 10. This diagram provides the basis from which to determine the available budget of carbon emissions still permitted to the international community before exceeding a given risk of temperature increase passing the policy target of 2C. This central issue is of the most fundamental importance as the international community seeks to formulate a legally binding agreement on the mitigation of climate change.

Greatest pressure to establish grounds for the highest possible budget came from those countries whose national economy, political power and social stability depend on sustaining the asset value and production revenue derived from exploitation of their resources of fossil energy. Additional pressure was applied to the political agents by those vested interests whose sustained profitability was based on the extraction, refining, marketing and use of fossil energy as the ground of the global economy.

Collusional pressure is not confined to the four days of political scrutiny. It is brought to bear throughout the complex writing, review and editorial process of the IPCC. It is also experienced acutely throughout the global discipline of climate science in the conduct and writing-up of academic research and its subsequent publication.

The result is a marked tendency to take refuge in the safety of consensus-thinking, conservative formulation, and underestimation of critical risk. The outcome is a document of appeasement, that, while offering hope of “climate stabilisation in our time”, is not fit for the purpose of strategic policy-making.

Excerpt from PDF page 20, 21:

The “policy goal” of restraining anthropogenic increase in average surface temperature to no more than 2°C was never based on a scientific safety-case analysis. It is now clear that such an increase represents about half the difference between the depth of an ice-age and the warm inter-glacial conditions in which human civilization has developed. Major changes in planetary climate dynamics are precipitated by very small changes in average surface temperature. Strong additional evidence for the critical dependency is now being provided by the experience of significant shifts in global climate dynamics in response to a mere 0.85°C increase in surface temperature.

As it begins to dawn on us just how sensitive our planetary climate is to changes in average surface temperature, it becomes ever more clear that the threshold of dangerous climate change is already upon us. The assumption that no such threat would be encountered below some arbitrary ceiling of 2°C is, to put it bluntly, a delusion. Any international agreement to limit temperature change to the policy target of 2°C … would condemn our planetary system, and the human civilization on which it depends, to unthinkable levels of catastrophic climate change.

We can no longer honour the UNFCCC commitment to the avoidance of dangerous climate change. That threshold has already been passed. Limiting the extent of dangerous climate change requires a reduction in the policy target to a mere 1°C above the pre-industrial benchmark. Even at that level we would have to adapt to changes in the planetary dynamics significantly more intense than those already being experienced around the world.

Excerpt from PDF page 22:

…the consequences of applying a robust value for the Earth System Sensitivity (with slow feedbacks included, instead of only fast feedbacks, as the IPCC has done):

— The temperature response to the proposed ceiling of allowed carbon emissions is 5.4°C, not the 2°C indicated in the SPM.

— The temperature response to the current set of emission-reduction pledges is c. 10°C, not c. 4°C as indicated in the SPM.

— The temperature response to which we are already committed at the present level of cumulative carbon emission is 3.9°C (+ effect of non-CO2 GHG emissions) not 1.5°C implied in the SPM.

— The budget of c. 300GtC of available carbon emission before breaching the 2°C policy target is seen to be an illusion. In reality the carbon account is already overdrawn by c. 288GtC.

— All the above figures should be treated as conservative underestimates as we move from the stable conditions of the Holocene into the far-from-equilibrium, rapid change and enhanced sensitivity of the Anthropocene.

— Recognition of the sensitivity of global climate dynamics to small changes in average surface temperature implies that the degree of safety assumed in the policy target of limiting increase to no more than 2°C above the pre-industrial value, is a delusion.

— Avoiding dangerous climate change is no longer possible. Limiting its intensity requires restriction of the target temperature increase to no more than 1°C.

— Achieving that goal requires reduction in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gasses to around 310 ppm of CO2e (from the current value of some 450 ppm CO2e).

On these grounds the Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC AR5 WG1 should be rejected as not fit for the purpose of policy-making. It is a compromise between what is scientifically necessary and what is deemed to be politically and economically feasible. It is a document of appeasement, in active collusion with the global addiction to fossil sources of energy.

Some key omissions about the Arctic in the IPCC AR5 WG1 SPM (Summary for Policymakers), compiled by climateye associate / supporter / contributor, Dr. Peter D. Carter

The two worst general omissions

• NO positive carbon cycle feedbacks are represented in any way or form, which are the entire basis for the threat of unpredictable thresholds beyond which systems enter a rapid, unstoppable, irreversible (self-perpetuated / reinforced), ‘runaway’ state of heat feedback and risk of sudden / abrupt climate system shifts / tips / flips that can occur over mere years.

• The new RCP (Representative Concentration Pathway) scenarios are ALL projections based on a continued, fossil fuel-dominated global economic / energy regime, NOT on the necessary EMERGENCY energy revolution / transition / transformation to everlasting (non-burning), ‘zero carbon’ sources (wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, etc.).

Items not assessed or recorded

• Arctic regional warming is not given or projected
• The rate of Arctic sea ice thickness or volume is not given or projected
• While the release of CO2 or CH4 to the atmosphere from the thaw of permafrost carbon stocks over the 21st century is assessed, the other very large sources of Arctic methane — in particular, Arctic subsea floor methane — are not mentioned, and the evidence for Arctic methane hydrate destabilization is not noted
• Impacts from Arctic wetland peat is not mentioned, and the evidence for increased methane emissions is not recorded
• The post 2007 renewed sustained atmospheric methane increase attributed to feedback process planetary methane emissions partly Arctic is not recorded
• Current Arctic permafrost emissions of nitrous oxide is not mentioned
• Arctic albedo feedback process is not mentioned
• Arctic amplification sensitivity is not given
• Projected Arctic warming is not given
• The irreversibility of any of the Arctic positive feedbacks is not mentioned
• The cascading additive effect of multiple Arctic positive feedbacks on the rate of global warming is not mentioned.
• The possible effects on the Northern hemisphere of losing most of the Far North spring-summer snow and summer Arctic sea ice albedo cooling influence is not mentioned

Understatements and underestimates

• It is assessed as only “likely” that there has been an anthropogenic (human) contribution to Arctic warming since the mid-20th century
• It is assessed as only “very likely” that the Arctic sea ice cover will continue to shrink / thin and that Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover will decrease as global mean surface this century
• The projections of Arctic sea ice decline to virtual zero is projected from the models as decades away, while an extrapolation of actual sea ice volume indicates it is only years away
• Only uses the single fixed metric fast feedback mean of +3ºC for climate sensitivity when there is a large possibility that it is +4.5ºC and, with all carbon cycle fast AND slow feedbacks, +4.5ºC to +6ºC
• Temperature and climate change effect projections are only given to 2100. Even if atmospheric GHG stabilization occurs at 2100, the temperature will be committed to nearly double over the very long term after 2100
• Permafrost thaw emissions is only given as carbon and is not assessed as CO2 and methane
• There is no indication of the inclusion of the current very high Arctic amplification or internal heat generation of CO2 emissions from permafrost

Summary: The +2ºC “danger threshold” charade

A global average surface temperature increase of +2°C (+3.6°F) since pre-industrial time (pre-1900) is the upper limit that countries have set as their target in climate talks and is anticipated to occur by 2040 (or perhaps by 2036) unless dramatic action is taken to peak emissions by 2020 (as concluded in the latest, conservative IPCC reports, that is) and ensure a rapid reduction thereafter.

Current CO2 emissions levels are at the top of the (very conservative, underestimated) worst-case, business-as-usual projection, which is called RCP8.5, and is one of 4 examined potential scenarios. It estimates a range from +2.6°C to +4.8°C of warming (heating) since pre-industrial times (pre-1900) by 2100.

May not sound like much, but it *should*, you know, empty your bowels, because this rapid an increase of global average temperature is an APOCALYPTIC trajectory — the lives of BILLIONS (peoples and species) at risk or KILLED in the lead up / short-term, and the potential DECIMATION OF MOST LIFE ON EARTH over the only slightly longer term / decades. And +2ºC around 2040 (since pre-1900) is the optimistic version because ‘reality’, not cautious, conservative, consensus-based science or problematic computer models, will be an actual, increasingly disruptive, destructive, health and livelihood compromising, in many cases life-threatening, factor between now and then.

The biggest, most immediate and urgent impacts of the climate crisis EMERGENCY are the threats it ALREADY poses to fresh water availability / quality, food / agriculture production / supply / security and multi-regional insecurity / instability (as a threat multiplier) because these lead to — and increase the likelihood of — the entire range of undesired consequences like famine, disease proliferation, conflict, resource wars, failed states (the number of countries at high risk of disintegration has doubled from 7 to 15 since 2005), mass migration / die-offs / biodiversity loss / extinctions.

Some perspective by degrees

The neighborhood of +6ºC global mean average temperature increase beyond pre-industrial (1900) levels is considered unlivable for most life.

Multiple high profile, traditionally conservative entities (The World Bank, International Energy Agency, Price Waterhouse Coopers, The Royal Society, Met Office, United Nations Environment Programme — view all the reports in climateye’s compilation here) have warned that, on our current, ‘business as usual’ emissions path, +4ºC or more (not a range of +2.6ºC to +4.8ºC) by 2100 would be almost certain, AND some anticipate the vicinity of +4ºC to be very plausible as soon as 2055 or the 2060s. This possibility has been described as not only catastrophic, but incompatible with organized civilization to the point that as little as 10% of humanity could survive. And not pleasantly. And not for long because +4ºC soon leads to +5ºC, then +6ºC. Some studies postulate even higher increases of up to +8ºC by 2100.

A rise of +3ºC would assure the collapse of agriculture worldwide. In vulnerable climates like Africa and Asia, this tip would begin at +1ºC and occur through the lead up to +2ºC (billions hungry or starved to death).

At +1.5ºC, vast stores of the super-charged greenhouse gas methane (86-100 times more potent than CO2 over a 20-year time horizon) frozen in northern permafrost and seabeds could destabilize (melt) and rapidly accelerate the increase of global temperatures. (See Compilation: Arctic meltdown / methane time bomb.)

In this 2009 article, Perfect storm of environmental and economic collapse closer than you think, Jonathon Porritt warned that a confluence of factors are anticipated to build over the next few years and mount into “world upheavals”, perhaps as soon as 2020.

Meanwhile, the clear, present, acceleration of dangerous impacts from our current +0.85ºC, ALREADY out of energy balance, world displaces millions / KILLS hundreds of thousands each year, and compromises the lives and livelihoods of billions RIGHT NOW.

Excerpts from What zombie films tell us about climate change: there’s no one happy ending — Zombie films play havoc with traditional narratives, like the one that puts a mythical +2ºC limit at the heart of climate change, Christopher Shaw, The Guardian…

Policy makers, journalists and NGOs have for some time been claiming that climate change will only become dangerous when the planet has warmed by an average of two degrees centigrade over the pre-industrial average.

…if climate change is not dangerous until the planet has warmed by two degrees centigrade, why is it we are already witnessing a number of record-breaking, high-impact, weather extremes (heat waves in the US and Australia, drought and flooding in the UK, and the Arctic sea ice melt mentioned above)?

Climate science has never defined a dangerous limit. In fact the vast majority of scientists have long made clear that choosing to define climate change as a phenomenon with a single dangerous limit is a value judgment that should be made through the appropriate democratic processes.

…Questions about what level of warming constitutes an acceptable risk have been kept out of the public sphere. “Not in front of the children” sums up the attitudes of those deciding how much climate change is to be considered dangerous. The authority of “science” has been invoked by a range of non-scientific actors to give this value choice the status of objective fact. In this story the policy makers are the authors, and the primary audience journalists and NGOs.

Constructing climate change as a phenomenon with a two-degree dangerous limit is an overtly political act. It is an approach which frames the issue as amenable to political regulation through the same kind of targets regime that defines much government policy.

However, the two-degree foundation for the carbon reduction targets is highly problematic and there is little evidence to support the claim that, in the unlikely event of meeting those carbon targets, dangerous climate change will be avoided.

In addition, falsely ascribing a scientifically derived dangerous limit to climate change diverts attention away from questions about the political and social order that have given rise to the crisis. Instead the debate is limited to discussing which technologies offer the most cost-effective means of delivering the emission targets.

As Ross noted when writing about climate change over 20 years ago: “Calculations surrounding our ability to survive in a dramatically altered natural world are presented rationally so as to deny the irrationality of the actions generating the crisis.” From this perspective, the two-degree limit is in reality a discourse of control. The manipulation of symbols is a key technique of social control; it has been argued that if the public accepts a particular definition of a problem then they will generally consent to the actions the powerful wish to take.

To maintain a particular symbolic definition of a crisis, the state pulls on the esteem of science to give a value position the appearance of fact, because an ideological position “can never be really successful until it is naturalised, and it cannot be naturalised while it is still thought of as a value rather than a fact.

As well as working ideologically to construct climate change as the type of problem that does not pose a challenge to the legitimacy of the current order, the claim of a scientific two-degree dangerous limit poses climate change as a problem for the future, allowing fossil fuel industries to continue with business as usual while an industrial scale techno-fix is sought.

The abstraction of a single dangerous limit removes climate politics from our immediate lived experience and into the locked conference rooms of global institutions. Instead of being rooted in the value systems which people use to negotiate life it becomes a symbol, residing in the hands of a few, that can be reconfigured to suit the changing needs of these elites.

As it becomes increasingly apparent that it will not be possible to stay under two degrees of warming, the goalposts are moved to construct the idea of adapting to a four-degree future. When the four-degree limit is breached, anyone still left alive can set a new six-degree limit, ad infinitum through to extinction.

Why have campaigners and journalists been willing to propagate such a dangerous myth? It could be argued that in having to communicate information about a complex and novel problem in a noisy media environment it is inevitable that these actors will latch on to an easily understood idea which can be described in very few words.

That policymakers are already using the concept makes it doubly attractive to campaigners, because they know that any demands they make which are aligned to the two-degrees limit will be greeted more sympathetically than by a campaign to, say, limit warming to one degree, or to abandon the dangerous limit idea all together.

The mass media have been willing to communicate the policy makers’ two-degree line because they are orientated towards, and act as a largely uncritical echo chamber for, the voices of the most powerful on significant policy issues.

But perhaps the most important reason why NGOs and journalists have failed to offer any critique of the two-degree limit, and why many academics and other commentators have replicated the concept unthinkingly in their work, is that without the idea of a dangerous limit there is simply no climate change story to tell.

There has been widespread acceptance of the two-degree story because stories are essential to our understanding of the world and most of the stories we tell are narratives designed to impose order on the world.

According to the two-degree narrative, once upon a time there was an order called modernity, and all was well. Along came the nasty climate change monster to threaten this order. Luckily the monster did not become dangerous until it heated up by two degrees. This gave the people of the land the time to find a way to keep the monster safe by creating a green economy. The new green economy was very nice and everyone was happy.

That story is simply a fairy tale. But there is another story, blocked by the two-degree narrative, which does have not one single happy ending, but many millions of different endings, some happier than others.

In this story, there is no two-degree limit. There is a world of massive uncertainty, a chaotic non-linear range of climate change impacts which the people realise is beyond the scope of modernity to even understand, let alone respond to. All the knowledge, ways of being, cultures and technologies of the past and present are part of the millions of different stories that people in different parts of the world need to tell themselves to be able to find their own way through what is happening and what is yet to come.

Who knows what the endings of these different stories will be, but they will be stories that people have made by themselves, rooted in the opportunities and constraints of their own lives, not fantasies foisted on them from afar to serve the interests of people they do not know and will never meet.

Ironically, our best hope for reducing climate danger may lie in rejecting the very idea of a dangerous limit to climate change.

10 bullets that eviscerate all credibility of the +2°C “danger threshold” charade

• Supposed +2ºC ‘danger threshold’
• Article – Earth will cross the (far too high) climate danger threshold in 2036, SA
• Post – Study rebuts IPCC, calls for more severe emissions cuts, A. Freedman, CC
• Post – Scientists warn 2ºC leads to ‘disastrous consequences’, J. Romm, CP
• Article – Safe limit lowered dramatically by experts, John Rennie, SA
• Article – UN’s 2ºC target will fail to avoid a disaster, S. Goldenberg, Guardian
• Report – Assessing “dangerous climate change”: Required reduction of carbon emissions to protect young people, future generations and nature, Dr. James Hansen and various authors, PLOS.org (26-page PDF)
• Compilation – IPCC reports and the 2°C danger threshold / carbon budget CON JOB
• Compilation: Dr. James Hansen and the global climate EMERGENCY or: Recipe for disaster, NOT salvation
• 2ºC hotter a disaster, Tim Radford, Climate News Network
• Analysis – Is climate change already dangerous? D. Spratt, Climate Code Red
• Article – What zombie films tell us about climate change, C. Shaw, Guardian
• Web page – The 2 degree story in 5 easy steps, C. Shaw, DangerousLimits.org
• Post – Re-thinking a “safe climate”: Have we already gone too far?, David Spratt
• Study – Paleoclimate implications for human made climate change, Hansen, Sato
• Blog – Excerpts from must-read Hansen/Sato paper, Climate Progress

Summary: Why the supposed global carbon budget / climate math doesn’t add up

The video summarizes the general idea. 4 inches down are reasons why it’s batshit false.

Conservative IPCC

“Limiting the warming caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions alone with a probability of >33%, >50%, and >66% to less than 2°C since the period 1861–1880, will require cumulative CO2 emissions from all anthropogenic sources to stay between 0 and about 1570 GtC (5760 GtCO2), 0 and about 1210 GtC (4440 GtCO2), and 0 and about 1000 GtC (3670 GtCO2) since that period, respectively 23. These upper amounts are reduced to about 900 GtC (3300 GtCO2), 820 GtC (3010 GtCO2), and 790 GtC (2900 GtCO2), respectively, when accounting for non-CO2 forcings as in RCP2.6. An amount of 515 [445 to 585] GtC (1890 [1630 to 2150] GtCO2), was already emitted by 2011. (SPM, 25)

“A lower warming target, or a higher likelihood of remaining below a specific warming target, will require lower cumulative CO2 emissions. Accounting for warming effects of increases in non-CO2 greenhouse gases, reductions in aerosols, or the release of greenhouse gases from permafrost will also lower the cumulative CO2 emissions for a specific warming target.” (SPM, page 26)

climateye

Translation: According to the IPCC, about 1,000 gigatons (1 trillion metric tons) of carbon released into the atmosphere and ocean would result in a global average surface temperature increase of +2°C / +3.6°F since pre-industrial time (pre-1900), which is the upper limit that countries have set as their target in climate talks and is anticipated to occur by 2040 (or perhaps by 2036) unless dramatic action is taken to peak emissions by 2020 and ensure a rapid reduction thereafter.

With 515 GtC already emitted (range 445 – 586, or about 51 percent), just to have a mere 66 percent chance that the +2°C threshold (which is far too high) will not be overshot (based on the most dramatic / optimistic / unlikely examined RCP future emissions reduction scenario / pathway / projection), most fossil fuel reserves must not be burned.

But the previous IPCC report (AR4, 2007) stated that this peak in emissions would have to be achieved by 2015, not 2020. And the 2013 WG1 Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) notes that the combination of multiple feedbacks (“non-CO2 forcings” like methane release from permafrost melt) will use up even more of this 1,000 GtC total ‘budget’ and that they are NOT accounted for in any of the RCP / future scenario projections.

The ALREADY accelerated escape of massive amounts of the powerful greenhouse gas, methane (a carbon molecule 82-100 times more potent as a heat-trapping gas than CO2 over a 20-year time horizon), buried in the frozen permafrost of northern Canada, Siberia and underwater ocean shelves, is of EMERGENCY, ‘LIFE OR EXTINCTION’-scale concern. (Yes, really!)

This omission alone renders many of the IPCC (and its supposed ‘carbon budget’) conclusions to be dramatic underestimates. And a new study makes the argument that, at as little as +1.5ºC of global average surface temperature increase (since pre-industrial times / pre-1900 / we’re at +0.85ºC now / +1.5ºC anticipated before or around 2030), the release of large amounts of methane (as much as 100 billion tons — a lot — of carbon by 2100) could become (in climateye’s words) a blow torch accelerator of rapid, unstoppable, irreversible (self-perpetuated / reinforced) heat feedback. (See Compilation: Arctic meltdown / methane time bomb.)

In fact, NO climate models to date incorporate consideration of the various amplifying and inter-reinforcing Arctic feedbacks (loss of sea ice-albedo, warming northern peatlands, methane release from permafrost melt, methane clathrates from the melt of ocean floors, nitrous oxide feedback, soot), nor do they evaluate their combined impacts.

Back to the ‘budget’. The impacts of non-CO2 emissions brings the overall cumulative total down from 1 trillion tonnes of carbon (as CO2) to about 790 billion tonnes. If we, in theory, have ALREADY used (burned) 515, that leaves 275 from the supposed total of 1,000. Minus the methane thing and we’re left with, well…NUTH’N.

Not to mince words, to characterize the situation in ‘budget’ terms, and based on the supposed, long-pervasive, incorrect, insane, political, arbitrarily chosen, profit and delay-motivated +2°C (+3.6°F) ‘danger threshold’, is utter, crack-smoking Mayor of Toronto-level nonsense because:

• the (messed up) ‘budget’ numbers themselves show that NO ‘budget’ remains;

• atmospheric concentrations of CO2 — and their clear, present, accelerated impacts — are ALREADY far too high and can ONLY be levelled off (let alone, reduced) once emissions STOP / return to ZERO, because ANY further releases, even if at reduced amounts and rates, will continue to increase total concentrations and worsen what are ALREADY drastic consequences (the last time atmospheric CO2 concentrations were as high as they are now — around 400 ppmv / parts per million volume — sea levels became 5 to 25 metres higher);

• +2ºC is far too high and would be CATASTROPHIC — the lives of billions (peoples and species) at risk or KILLED in the lead up / short-term, and the potential decimation of most life on Earth over the only slightly longer term / decades;

• it ignores / miscommunicates the very nature of the climate crisis: its unpredictability!

Given the uncertain influence of feedback mechanisms / imminence of multiple tipping points (with 3 of 9 planetary boundaries already thought to have been passed); the risk of irreversible, ‘runaway‘ momentum and potential sudden, abrupt climate shifts; and the clear, present, acceleration of dangerous impacts (breakdown, disruption, destabilization) that are in advanced stages RIGHT NOW…

There is, ALREADY, NO ‘budget’ because it can no longer be considered safe to emit greenhouse gases (and thereby further increase the atmospheric concentrations of CO2) in any amount AT ALL. And even if climate breakdown (disruption, destabilization) WAS a ‘budgetable’ phenomenon which, again, is insane, we’ve ALREADY broken the bank, we’re ALREADY WAY over, and ALREADY owe a massive, eye-balls deep carbon debt to our children that will threaten their ability to survive, let alone, thrive.

With due respect to all involved, and the many incredible, devoted, well-intentioned folks who advocate around ‘climate math‘, Bill McKibben et al (as in the video above, informed by this 2009 study and, now, the 2013 / 2014 IPCC AR5 report), to interpret and communicate the predicament within a ‘budget’ frame, let alone with figures THIS flawed / underestimated, is just, pardon the slang, batshit false.

Quotes

“Two degrees (+2ºC) is not enough – we should be thinking of +1.5ºC. If we are not headed to +1.5ºC we are in big, big trouble.” … “The argument I am making is not about feasibility but an argument of social justice. We can’t have as our goal something that we already know does not guarantee the survival of low-lying states and sub-Saharan Africa. If we already know that, in my book there is no way we can stick to the goal we know is completely unacceptable to the most exposed [countries].” ~ UN Chief, Christina Figueres, challenges world to agree tougher target for climate change, Fiona Harvey, The Guardian, June 1, 2011

“…at today’s level of carbon dioxide, and not much above the current temperature, the world has experienced sea-levels 5 to 25 metres higher than at present! … It is hard to argue that anything above the Holocene maximum (of around +0.5ºC above the pre-industrial temperature) can preserve a safe climate, and that we have not already gone too far.  The notion that +1.5ºC is a safe target is out the window, and even +1ºC looks like an unacceptably high risk.” ~ Re-thinking a “safe climate”: Have we already gone too far? David Spratt, Climate Code Red, interprets Hansen research, Jan. 23, 2011

And there’s that other pesky thing that, for some mysterious reason, never seems to get mentioned, but i’ll state for the record yet again: A major scientific update to the 2007 IPCC report that was conceived in the lead up to the Dec. 2009, COP15 Copenhagen climate summit — the Scientific Congress on Climate Change Synthesis Report (March, 2009) — concluded that (due to the 30-40-year latent heat lag in the climate system) an increase of +2ºC to +2.4ºC was already locked in (page 18). Since then, the situation has only worsened and accelerated.

By the way, after the release of part 1 of the latest IPCC report, one study suggested its numbers were overestimated by 25 per cent. Another, led by Dr. James Hansen, explains why +2ºC would be foolhardy, and that not more than +1ºC, or 50 per cent of the ‘budget’ proposed by the IPCC, is what is necessary to avert “disastrous” consequences.

More

• About the supposed ‘Global Carbon Budget’
• Post – Study rebuts IPCC, calls for more severe emissions cuts, A. Freedman, CC
• Post – Scientists warn 2ºC ‘disastrous consequences’, J. Romm, CP
• Article – Safe limit lowered dramatically by experts, John Rennie, SA
• Compilation – IPCC reports, 2°C danger threshold / carbon budget CON JOB
• Release / report – 2013 IPCC carbon budget may be overestimated, Eurekalert
• Post – Warsaw talks ignore IPCC ‘carbon budget’ approach, A. Freedman, CC
• Article – IPCC corrects carbon budget figures in landmark report, The Guardian
• Post – Confused about the new IPCC’s carbon budget? So am I, D. Spratt, CCR
• Article – A world of extremes and biological hotspots, J. Abraham, The Guardian
• Post – IPCC report contains ‘grave’ carbon budget message, A. Freedman, CC
• Post – Carbon budget framing is recipe for delaying concrete action, Joe Romm, CP
• Article – Canada in the era of unburnable carbon, Stephen Leahy, DeSmog Canada
• Article – IPCC: 30 years to climate calamity, F. Harvey, The Guardian
• Article – UN climate report to establish ‘global carbon budget’, E. King, RTCC.org
• Article – Global warming’s terrifying new math, Bill McKibbon, Rolling Stone

Reality

Difficult as it is to communicate, absorb and process, let alone accept, and as shrill / alarmist as it may sound…

Our shared atmosphere is on an accelerating course to reach a state of potentially unsurvivable, global climate extremes during the lives of today’s children and teens. (Compilation: +4°C by 2060s or sooner catastrophic / incompatible with organized civilization.)

The projected rate of temperature change for THIS century is greater — and at least 10 times faster — than that of any extended global heating period over the past 65 million years, when somewhere between 75 and 95 per cent of all species alive at the time were rendered extinct.

We are in the midst — and primary cause — of the 6th great mass extinction event. 150-200 species die-off every 24 hours, up to 140,000 per year, which is at least 1,000, maybe even 10,000, times the average background rate.

The 2014 Living Planet Report estimated that global wildlife populations have fallen by an average of 52% between 1970 and 2010, halved over 40 years from the impacts of exploitation, habitat degradation and climate change. Freshwater species, 76%. Land and ocean creatures, 39%. (Also see: Compilation: Mass bee die-off.)

Oceans are at their most acidic levels in 65 million years / most rapid (and accelerating) rate of increase in what may be 300 million years. It has been suggested that an outcome of our current, carbon-intensive trajectory could be the potential collapse of marine life — and the foundational base organisms that are an indespensible necessity for ALL LIFE to exist — within decades.

Sea levels could rise by metres this century and may be committed to catastrophic tens of metres long-term.

Clear, present impacts ALREADY displace / KILL millions each year, and compromise the lives of billions RIGHT NOW.

With several key regulatory systems in advanced stages of breakdown / disruption / destabilization, the risks / threats / catastrophic implications of sudden / abrupt / unpredictable / irreversible shifts / tips / flips that can occur over time frames as brief as a few years are ALREADY upon us.

Another aspect of this includes economic / energy / power / transport / distribution system disruption from extreme / more frequent / prolonged weather events — heat waves, wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, typhoons, floods, the potential flood / meltdown of one or more nuclear power plants, a nuclear exchange (whether intentional or accidental) as the result of political / social unrest / chaos, extended blackouts (grocery stores only have 3 days of food beyond which we would all become rather desperate), a sudden, widespread disease outbreak / plague, a potential stock market shock or crash in reaction to any individual or combination of the above.

Most of these things have ALREADY occurred on large scales, are more probable to occur in the future, or are in actual progress in multiple regions RIGHT NOW. (See: Compilation: The threat of sudden / abrupt system shifts / tips / flips.)

Given the DIRE EMERGENCY of the climate (energy / population / democracy / justice) crisis and the severe impacts already observed / suffered by the most vulnerable / least culpable peoples and species, a rapid return to a less than +0.85-degree Celsius (our current, already out of energy balance) world is what is required to (somehow) attempt to restore the more stable climate that enabled humanity to evolve / civilization to develop.

If this umbrella peril is not tackled fast, the consequences — already grave compromises to fresh water availability / quality, food / agriculture production / supply / security and multi-regional insecurity / instability (as a threat multiplier) — will make it impossible for us to address ALL other global issues and causes, let alone to thrive or survive.

And if the governments of the world continue to allow themselves to be guided and limited as they always have by the cautious, conservative, flawed, lowest common denominator and, in large part, out-dated by the time of publication IPCC conclusions; if they refuse to leap beyond the delusional / suicidal frame of the supposed, long-pervasive, incorrect, political / economic, arbitrarily chosen, profit and delay-motivated +2°C (+3.6°F) ‘danger threshold’ (far too high) / nonsensical ‘carbon budget‘ mentality…

global catastrophe will soon be locked in and assured to ensue over the next few decades.

No less than the fate of all generations of all peoples and most species hangs in the balance TODAY.  And only emergency international action at emergency (world war-time) speed FAST *may be* proportional enough to confront the scale, scope and urgency of what is ALREADY the greatest crime against humanity, most life and most future life EVER. (Compilation: Betrayal of Life.)

To deny this is to deny reality. But regardless of odds or potential outcomes (our choices / strength of character / what we stand for / our legacies should be based on principles of common sense, compassion, fairness / equity / equality / justice, wellness, survival, NOT the likelihood of success or failure), we ALL — especially those of us with greater privilege, opportunity, voice than so many others — have the power and moral responsibility to ACT, get informed, step up AND out, volunteer, participate, contribute, advocate / spread the word, protest, entertain / embrace considered risk at times, try to help however possible and, in doing so, INSPIRE others to do the same.

Because if we take the decision / path to see AND face the true — indeed, the existential — wickedness of our now-shared, undeniable, inescapable predicament, there will at least be possibilities. Perhaps even some we haven’t imagined — yet.

CON JOB: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

More

What is the IPCC?

• Fact Sheets – What is the IPCC?
• Article – What is the IPCC and why does it matter? TckTckTck.org
• Article – WTF is the IPCC? John Upton, Grist
• Q&A – IPCC climate report: Your questions answered, A.. Vaughan, The Guardian
• Summary – 2013 IPCC climate report: Your guide, New Scientist

Selected articles and posts

• About the 2013/2014 IPCC report – General
• Collected – Articles about the IPCC report(s), The Guardian
• Post – The IPCC: “All about modelling, not about protecting the Earth”, J. Johnston, Greenhearted
• Post – What does new IPCC report say? S. Easterbrook, Serendipity
• Article – IPCC report: 4 futures of environment and society, C. Brahic, NS
• Article – IPCC report shows action on climate change is critical, Suzuki, DSF
• Post – IPCC warns methane traps much more heat than we thought, Romm, CP
• Article – Climate change? Try catastrophic climate breakdown, Monbiot, Guardian
• Article – IPCC report: The digested read, D. Carrington, J. Vidal, Guardian
• Interactive – Climate change: How hot in my lifetime? D. Clark, Guardian
• Article – IPCC: 30 years to climate calamity, Fiona Harvey, The Guardian
• Post – 15 things you should know about the new IPCC report, R. Koronowski, CP
• Post – 6 scary conclusions in the new climate report, C. Mooney, Mother Jones
• Post – Alarming IPCC prognosis: 9F warming for U.S., faster sea rise, more extreme weather permafrost collapse, Joe Romm, CP
• Post – Climate projections more confident, dire from IPCC, A. Freedman, CC
• Post – 5 most sobering charts from the IPCC climate report, A. Freedman, CC
• Article – CO2 reshaping the planet, meta-analysis confirms, Stephen Leahy, IPS
• Post – The new IPCC climate report, Stefan, RealClimate.org
• Numbers – IPCC report by the numbers, G. Readfern, The Guardian
• About the supposed ‘Global Carbon Budget’
• Post – Confused about the new IPCC’s carbon budget? So am I, David Spratt, Climate Code Red
• Post – IPCC report contains ‘grave’ carbon budget message, A. Freedman, CC
• Post – ‘CO2 emissions budget framing is recipe for delaying concrete action now’, J. Romm, CP
• Article – Canada in the era of unburnable carbon, Stephen Leahy, DeSmog Canada
• Article – UN climate report to establish ‘global carbon budget’, E. King, RTCC.org
• About the supposed global warming “pause” / “slowdown”
• Post – Global warming, asteroid impacts, laws of physics, M. Boslough, Huffpost
• Post – Who created the global warming “pause”? Chris Mooney, Grist
• Article – Global warming pause is a mirage: the science is clear and the threat is real, Damian Carrington, The Guardian
• Article – Is global warming really slowing down? Chris Mooney, Mother Jones
• Post – Faux pause: Ocean warming, sea level rise and polar ice melt speed up, surface warming to follow, Joe Romm, CP
• Post – Media overlooking 90% of global warming, D. Nuccitelli, Skeptical Science
• Lead up to report
• Article – What 95% certainty of warming means to scientists, Seth Borenstein, AP
• Post – Experts eye IPCC reform as report nears release, A. Freedman, CC
• Post – Hansen report: Climate sensitivity is high, burning of all fossil fuels would make most of planet ‘uninhabitable’, Joe Romm, CP
• Article – Climate change to have double impact: New research shows traditional IPCC models could be underestimating global warming due to feedbacks, Nafeez Ahmed, The Guardian
• Article – 3 mistakes the media are making about the new climate change report, Laura McDonald, Alternatives Journal
• Article – Ahead of IPCC climate report, skeptic groups launch global anti-science campaign, Katherine Bagley, InsideClimateNews.org
• Post – Denier ‘intimidation tactics’ move IPCC to lowball sea level rise and climate sensitivity? Joe Romm, CP
• Article – A climate alarm, too muted for some, Justin Gillis, NY Times
• Post – Climate scientists erring on side of least drama, Dana Nuccitelli, SkepticalScience.com
• Post- New IPCC report: Climatologists even more certain global warming is caused by humans, impacts speeding up, Joe Romm, CP
• Article – What zombie films tell us about climate change: there’s no one happy ending, Christopher Shaw, The Guardian
• Web page – The 2 degree story in 5 easy steps, C. Shaw, DangerousLimits.org
• Post – IPCC’s planned obsolescence: 5th assessment report will ignore crucial permafrost carbon feedback, Joe Romm, CP
• Post – Report: 7 reasons climate change ‘even worse than we thought’, Romm, CP
• Report – 7 reasons climate change is even worse than we thought, New Scientist
• Post – The IPCC lowballs likely impacts with its instantly out-of-date reports and is clearly clueless on messaging — Should it be booted, or just rebooted? Romm, CP

Canada

• Article – IPCC report shows action on climate change is critical, David Suzuki, DSF
• Article – Canada in the era of unburnable carbon, Stephen Leahy, DeSmog Cda
• Article – IPCC Report: Canada at greater risk from climate change, R. Aulakh, TStar
• Article – Carbon budget = harsh reality check for Cdn investors, Marc Lee, G&M
• Article – Climate change will be felt strongly in Canada, Wingrove, Koring, G&M
• Article – Climate change report sparks partisan attacks, B. Cheadle, MacLean’s
• Article – Global warming ‘extremely likely’ to be man-made, UN panel says, CBC
• Article – Climate change report’s ‘temperature hiatus’ fuels skeptics, CBC
• Article – IPCC report: Canada at greater risk from climate change, R. Aulakh, TStar

Reports

• Report – IPCC 5th Assessment Report (AR5)
• IPCC Working Group 1 Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) — Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis (PDF, 28 pages)
• Collected – IPCC Publications and data reports
• Website – IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)
• Press release
• Headline Statements from the summary for policy makers
• Post – Hansen report: Climate sensitivity is high, burning of all fossil fuels would make most of planet ‘uninhabitable’, Joe Romm, CP
• Article – Climate change to have double impact: Traditional IPCC models could be underestimating global warming due to feedbacks, Nafeez Ahmed, The Guardian
• Report – Climate sensitivity, sea level and atmospheric carbon dioxide, The Royal Society, Hansen
• Report – Erring on the side of least drama, Brysse et al, ScienceDirect.com
• Report – 7 reasons climate change is even worse than we thought, New Scientist
• Compilation – Summary of March 09 ’emergency’ climate conference, Copenhagen
• IPCC Reports – Fourth Assessment Report (AR4, 2007/2008)
• IPCC Reports – Third Assessment Report (TAR, 2001)
• IPCC Reports – Second Assessment Report (SAR, 1995)
• IPCC Reports – Supplementary reports (1992)
• IPCC Reports – First Assessment Report (FAR, 1990)

Related climateye compilations

• Compilation – +4C by 2060s or sooner incompatible with organized civilization
• Compilation – EMERGENCY human impact reports expose the greatest crime against humanity, most life and most future life EVER
• Compilation: Dr. James Hansen and the global climate EMERGENCY or: Recipe for disaster, NOT salvation
• Compilation – Arctic meltdown / methane time bomb and the global climate EMERGENCY
• Compilation – Plan B 4.0: “We only have months, not years, to save civilization from climate change, Lester Brown
• Compilation – Summary of March 09 ’emergency’ climate conference,  Copenhagen
• Compilation – Big banks, markets and business as usual, or; The systemic inequity/corruption of our suicidal, growth-reliant, fossil fuel-addicted global economy
• Compilation – Geoengineering and the global climate EMERGENCY

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