By John Parnell
– The day’s top climate change stories as chosen by RTCC
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– Send your thoughts to [email protected]
– Updated from 0830-1700 BST (GMT+1)
Friday 14 December
Last updated: 1610
IPCC Response: The IPCC has issued a statement in response to the release of a draft of its next major report due to be released in September 2013. “These drafts were provided in confidence to reviewers and are not for distribution. It is regrettable that one out of many hundreds of reviewers broke the terms of the review and posted the drafts,” reads the release.
US Poll: A new survey by AP and market research firm GfK has found that 80% of Americans believe that climate change will be a serious problem for the US if nothing is done to tackle it. Only 45% believe that President Obama will be able to take steps to address global warming in his second term. (AP/GfK)
IPCC: A chapter of the next IPCC climate science assessment report has reportedly been leaked by a climate sceptic. Professor Steve Sherwood, lead author of the chapter that appears to have been published says that the conclusions drawn by the blogger responsible, that solar forcing is responsible for climate change.
“Oh that’s completely ridiculous,” Sherwood told ABC’s PM programme. “I’m sure you could go and read those paragraphs yourself and the summary of it and see that we conclude exactly the opposite, that this cosmic ray effect that the paragraph is discussing appears to be negligible.
“It’s not the first time it recognises it. What it shows is that we looked at this. We look at everything. The IPCC has a very comprehensive process where we try to look at all the influences on climate and so we looked at this one. And there have been a couple of papers suggesting that solar forcing affects climate through cosmic ray/cloud interactions, but most of the literature on this shows that that doesn’t actually work….[it] looks extremely unlikely.” (ABC)
Christiana Figueres: The UN climate change chief has called on leaders to abandon the “politics of blame” and seize the opportunity presented by the transition to a low carbon economy. Writing for RTCC, Figueres said the negotiations were “moving steadily in the right direction, but alarmingly slow”.
Conservation: Increased drought and cyclone risk will place extreme pressure on some species of mammals with primates at particularly high risk, according to the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). “This is the first study of its kind to look at which species are at risk from extreme climatic events…It is essential we identify species at greatest risk so that we can better inform conservation management in the face of global environmental change,” said Dr Nathalie Pettorelli, research fellow, ZSL. (Newstrack India)
EU: European Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard has praised the EU’s role in transforming the UN climate change talks. Writing for the Guardian, she details the list of accomplishments of the talks while acknowledging that progress remains “slow and frustrating”. (The Guardian)