WMO Secretary-General warns against climate ‘doomsters and extremists’

The end is not nigh

Petteri Taalas

Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

London, 6 September: The General-Secretary of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says that the alarmist narrative on climate change has gone off the rails and criticised the news media for provoking unjustified anxiety.

Speaking to Finland’s financial newspaper Talouselämä (The Journal) on 6 September 2019, Petteri Taalas called for cooler heads to prevail, saying that he does not accept arguments of climate alarmists that the end of the world is at hand.

Dr Taalas also spoke of the dangers of green extremism:

While climate scepticism has become less of an issue, now we are being challenged from the other side. Climate experts have been attacked by these people and they claim that we should be much more radical. They are doomsters and extremists; they make threats.

And he called for the media both to challenge experts and allow a broader range of opinions to be heard.

The director of the Global Warming Policy Forum, Dr Benny Peiser, welcomed Dr Taalas’s intervention:

It’s very welcome to hear the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization finally challenging eco-zealots. I hope mainstream climate scientists and the news media sit up and take notice; it’s high time they put some professional distance between themselves and radical greens and start to question their apocalyptic narrative of doom.


This moment has been eagerly awaited by climate sceptics.

We’ve been aware from the start of the anthropogenic global warming hoo-ha of the warmsters making misleading statements, omitting inconvenient facts and lying outright, but we’ve been systematically excluded from public news outlets and silenced.

In the last few years the weight of public opinion has begun slowly turning against the warmsters as their predictions continually fail to materialise, their pet “clean energy” projects fail, their predictions become ridiculously extreme and their bitter and abusive rejection even of moderate queries rises to shrill new heights.

Now a voice is raised against these excesses they cannot easily dismiss. The WMO is, with the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme), a parent of the IPCC and speaks with considerable authority.

One imagines two possible courses now for the alarmists: soften their stance and rein in the likes of Extinction Rebellion, or double down on their rhetoric and scream for Dr Taalas’s head.

I hope they attack Dr Taalas; surely it will flush out reputable defenders.

James Renwick has until now rather conspicuously declined to comment on the overstated rhetoric of our home-grown activists like the Greens. He even agrees with the declaration of a “climate emergency.” So I eagerly await his response.

Visits: 911

23 Thoughts on “WMO Secretary-General warns against climate ‘doomsters and extremists’

  1. Peter Fraser on 07/09/2019 at 11:28 am said:

    I would hope that the blinkered New Zealand press might report this very newsworthy item but I very much doubt it. I suggest it be brought to the public’s attention by numerous letters to the various media. Letters to Local Governments that have declared climate emergencies asking them if they may wish to change their declarations should also be written. I intend to do a few myself.

  2. Richard Treadgold on 08/09/2019 at 1:38 pm said:

    Yes, I agree with you, Peter, this is a most welcome development. I’ve sent the GWPF press release to Stuff and the NZ Herald, though they won’t publish it. I’ve sent it to Whale Oil, who very well might, and I’m sending it to some other mainstream outlets.


    My wife has informed me that Whale Oil closed down recently as a result of a libel case brought against Cameron Slater, together with the effects of a stroke he suffered. So I regret my advice was wrong, since the GWPF press release didn’t reach anyone useful.
    – RT 10.9.2019

  3. Brigitte Allain on 08/09/2019 at 9:44 pm said:

    https://www.upm.com/news-and-stories/articles/2019/08/petteri-taalas-secretary-general-at-the-wmo-the-most-important-way-to-stop-the-climate-change-is-to-reduce-the-use-of-fossil-fuels/
    ARTICLE | 7 AUGUST 2019

    Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General at the WMO: The most important way to stop the climate change is to reduce the use of fossil fuels
    “Climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions – carbon dioxide and methane – is advancing inexorably. The average atmospheric temperature has risen by one degree and the temperature in the Arctic has risen by more than two degrees. The water in the oceans has warmed by approximately half a degree,” says Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

    Increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are caused by the use of fossil fuels – coal, oil and natural gas – along with changes in land use. Fossil fuels currently account for approximately 85% of energy production, with nuclear, hydropower and renewable energy sources together making up the remaining 15%.

    “The significantly increased use of fossil fuels has been the biggest surprise. Time after time, we have had to update the worst forecasts issued in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) reports. In the last two years, emissions have increased by almost 2% per year, so we’re still not going in the right direction,” he adds.

    Global warming has the effect of intensifying extreme weather events. In the past decade, about half of the Earth’s population has been affected by different types of natural disasters. Climate-related economic losses have tripled in 30 years, and the problem will only get worse in the future.

    Step one: cut emissions
    The most important way to curb climate change is to cut energy and traffic emissions, but population growth, food production and forestry and agriculture also have a great impact.

    “Building nuclear and hydropower plants is good for the climate. For example, in the Himalayan region of Nepal, the increased use of hydro-power is promoting the electrification of the country, and part of the energy can also be sold to India,” Taalas says.

    Renewable energy sources have meanwhile become an attractive investment. The percentage of solar and wind energy is rapidly growing in China, the United States and Europe.

    In the case of traffic, electric cars and biofuels offer part of the solution. “Geneva Airport wanted to begin refuelling aeroplanes with biofuels, but for the time being, renewable fuels are so much more expensive than fossil fuels that this is proving to be a challenge. Fuel price hikes caused riots in France, for example, so these are not easy decisions for politicians,” Taalas muses.

    In addition to carbon dioxide, methane is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Methane is generated in the production of beef and rice, but the paludification process caused by the destruction of rainforests is another source of these harmful emissions.

    “Methane emissions represent a contribution of approximately 17% to global warming. But since methane is stored in the atmosphere for only 12 years, this problem is easier to address. The effects of carbon dioxide last thousands of years.”

    Summit for change
    According to Taalas, the Paris Agreement signed four years ago is not being put into effect fast enough.

    “If we want to comply with the 1.5-degree trajectory specified by the IPCC, we must reverse the growth of emissions in the next five years and phase out fossil fuels completely by 2050. If we aim for the two-degree limit of the Paris Agreement, we have until 2070 to give up fossil energy.”

    In the past, developed countries have been the worst greenhouse gas polluters, but in the past 20 years, Asia has taken the lead. Countries outside the OECD have also increased their emissions rapidly in recent years.

    Although solar and wind energy are growing by double-digit figures, according to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the rate is not fast enough to keep up with growing electricity consumption. The deficit is mainly filled with fossil fuels.

    This alarming trend is a source of grave global concern. António Guterres, Secretary-General of the UN, is organising a UN Climate Change Summit in autumn, with Taalas in charge of the scientific side.

    “Our aim is for member countries to discuss new opportunities that allow us to move towards a low-emission world at a faster pace. The change is also a business opportunity from which the forerunners can gain the best benefits.”

  4. Richard Treadgold on 08/09/2019 at 10:02 pm said:

    Brigitte, you make no comment of your own, so I’d like to know your thoughts on this. But it’s quite understandable that Dr Taalas might hold to the incorrect IPCC view of man-made global warming and at the same time strongly criticise climate activists for an alarmist, overstated narrative. It is a fact that the AR5 takes a moderate stance on all climate metrics.

  5. Brigitte Allain on 08/09/2019 at 10:27 pm said:

    https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27082019/12-years-climate-change-explained-ipcc-science-solutions?

    What Does ’12 Years to Act on Climate Change’ (Now 11 Years) Really Mean?
    It doesn’t mean the world can wait until 2030 to cut greenhouse gas emissions, or that chaos will erupt in 2030. Here’s what the science shows.
    BY BOB BERWYN, INSIDECLIMATE NEWS. AUG 27, 2019

    We’ve been hearing variations of the phrase “the world only has 12 years to deal with climate change” a lot lately.

    Sen. Bernie Sanders put a version of it front and center of his presidential campaign last week, saying we now have “less than 11 years left to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy, if we are going to leave this planet healthy and habitable.”

    But where does the idea of having 11 or 12 years come from, and what does it actually mean?

    The number began drawing attention in 2018, when the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report describing what it would take to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, a goal of the Paris climate agreement. The report explained that countries would have to cut their anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, such as from power plants and vehicles, to net zero by around 2050. To reach that goal, it said, CO2 emissions would have to start dropping “well before 2030” and be on a path to fall by about 45 percent by around 2030 (12 years away at that time).

    Mid-century is actually the more significant target date in the report, but acting now is crucial to being able to meet that goal, said Duke University climate researcher Drew Shindell, a lead author on the mitigation chapter of the IPCC report.

    “We need to get the world on a path to net zero CO2 emissions by mid-century,” Shindell said. “That’s a huge transformation, so that if we don’t make a good start on it during the 2020s, we won’t be able to get there at a reasonable cost.”

    How Do Scientists Know?
    Basics physics and climate science allow scientists to calculate how much CO2 it takes to raise the global temperature—and how much CO2 can still be emitted before global warming exceeds 1.5°C (2.7°F) compared to pre-industrial times.

    Scientists worked backward from that basic knowledge to come up with timelines for what would have to happen to stay under 1.5°C warming, said Scott Denning, who studies the warming atmosphere at Colorado State University.

    “They figured out how much extra heat we can stand. They calculated how much CO2 would produce that much heat, then how much total fuel would produce that much CO2. Then they considered ‘glide paths’ for getting emissions to zero before we burn too much carbon to avoid catastrophe,” he said.

    Chart: IPCC Pathways to Staying Under 1.5 Degrees Celsius Warming
    “All this work gets summarized as ‘in order to avoid really bad outcomes, we have to be on a realistic glide path toward a carbon-free global economy by 2030.’ And that gets translated to something like ’emissions have to fall by half in a decade,’ and that gets oversimplified to ’12 years left.’

    “There’s certainly a grain of truth in the phrase, but it’s so oversimplified that it leads to comically bad misconceptions about how to get there, conjuring up ridiculous cartoon imagery suggesting we just go on with life normally for the next 11 years and then the world ends,” Denning said.

    That’s not what the IPCC writers envisioned, he said.

    The science on the 2030 date is clear, said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University. The controversy stems from people mischaracterizing the carbon reduction timeline as a threshold for climate disaster. He noted that people promoting climate science denial and delay have also latched on to the phrase “to intentionally try to caricature the concern about climate change.”

    What Would Success Look Like?
    It would be helpful if people looked at the 2030 target in terms of what success looks like rather than what failure means, Denning said.

    “Solving the problem by 2030, 2040 or 2050 requires a new global energy infrastructure, which is arguably easier and less expensive than past infrastructure shifts like indoor plumbing, rural electrification, the automobile and paved roads, telecommunications, computers, mobile phones or the internet.

    “All of these past changes cost tens of trillions of dollars, adjusted for inflation. All of them were hugely disruptive. All of them took a decade or more, completely changed the industrial and economic and social landscape, and created bursts of growth and productivity and jobs. And arguably, all of them made life better for huge numbers of people.”

    This time, the shift is from heavy reliance on carbon-emitting fossil fuels to carbon-free energy sources, like wind power. And even with a speedy energy transition, the IPCC says keeping temperatures from warming more than 1.5°C will also likely require removing CO2 from the atmosphere on a large scale.

    Chart: Staying Within a 1.5°C Carbon Budget
    Missing the target doesn’t imply the onset of cataclysmic climate change in 2030, Denning said.

    “Things just keep getting worse and worse until we stop making them worse, and then they never get better,” he said. “But no matter what, the world has to move on from fossil fuels just as we moved on from tallow candles and outhouses and land lines.”

    What Would Exceeding 1.5°C Warming Mean?
    The IPCC report described how increasing greenhouse gas emissions will result in more dangerous and costly disruptions to global societies and ecosystems, including longer, hotter heat waves and more frequent crop-killing droughts.

    Mountain glaciers will melt faster as the planet warms, creating new risks for settlements in the valleys below. The meltdown of polar ice sheets is also projected to accelerate, intensifying flooding and speeding up sea level rise to a rate that will be hard to adapt to. More Arctic permafrost will thaw, releasing more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

    Despite the rising risks, it’s important to understand that, “in the physical climate system, there are no scientists claiming that there is a magical threshold that we breach or don’t breach that determines whether we have a habitable climate system,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Center for Climate and Weather Extremes.

    The 2030 target is useful because it shows how the “next decade is incredibly consequential for what we do.” Swain said. “But I think the emphasis that’s being placed on this specific 12-year window as a differentiator between existential crisis or not is problematic.

    “First of all, it negates some of the risks that already exist and that will continue to build no matter what. And it also potentially suggests that anything short of complete victory in the next 12 years is pointless, which is exactly the opposite of the truth. At any point along the spectrum, more progress is always going to be better than less progress, less warming is always going to be better than more warming.”

    Have We Passed Tipping Points Already?
    In some ways, the “12 years” narrative may set up a deadline that’s too lenient, because some key part of the climate system may already be at or past tipping points, Swain said.

    It creates the false illusion that there is some sort of guardrail moving forward, that if we just get in under the deadline we’ll be OK, he said. But “twelve years from now, it could be too late for some of these things, like the ice sheets.”

    Research in the past few years reinforces the idea that some climate tipping points have already been breached. Studies show some parts of the Greenland Ice Sheet are unlikely to recover, and parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may also be at or very near a tipping point to rapid disintegration.

    A study published in June suggested that the rate of permafrost thawing is progressing much faster than climate models projected. And scientists studying the link between global warming and European heat waves said those recent extremes are also outside the scope of what they expected at current levels of warming.

    The world will still exist if we breach 1.5°C and 2°C, but “the climate impacts and risks will be higher and the temperature will be higher,” said Glen Peters, research director at the CICERO climate research center in Oslo. That all seems to be sinking in to public awareness, he said.

    “But in terms of deadlines, we have already missed the deadline,” he said. “We should have started mitigating decades ago, then we would have the problem solved.”

  6. Brigitte Allain on 08/09/2019 at 10:56 pm said:

    https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-the-greenland-ice-sheet-fared-in-2019?

    Dr Ruth Mottram, Dr Martin Stendel and Dr Peter Langen are climate scientists at the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) in Copenhagen, which is part of the Polar Portal. Dr Andreas Ahlstrøm and Dr Kenneth D. Mankoff are chief research consultant and senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, respectively.

    As the end of August sees summer shift into autumn for the northern hemisphere, it also marks the end of the melt season for the Greenland ice sheet.

    The advent of a new season is the traditional time for our annual look back at the year gone by and what it tells us about the state ice sheet.

    Our estimates show that the surface of the ice sheet gained 169bn tonnes of ice over 2018-19 – this is the seventh smallest gain on record.

    And using new satellite data, we show that – once all ice sheet processes are factored in for the past year – the Greenland ice sheet saw a net decline of 329bn tonnes in ice.

  7. Richard Treadgold on 08/09/2019 at 11:37 pm said:

    Brigitte, you still have not expressed your own thoughts. Do you believe these copied posts you’re pasting here? You paste:

    Basic physics and climate science allow scientists to calculate how much CO2 it takes to raise the global temperature—and how much CO2 can still be emitted before global warming exceeds 1.5°C (2.7°F) compared to pre-industrial times.

    This is wrong. If scientists could calculate this, they would have told us. Indeed, we would all know the calculation by heart, but no such thing is happening. There’s no evidence that man-made CO2 can significantly raise the surface temperature. The very possibility is vigorously disputed by scientists and the IPCC gives no evidence for it.

  8. Richard Treadgold on 08/09/2019 at 11:43 pm said:

    Brigitte, you paste:

    Climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions – carbon dioxide and methane – is advancing inexorably. The average atmospheric temperature has risen by one degree and the temperature in the Arctic has risen by more than two degrees. The water in the oceans has warmed by approximately half a degree,

    This is pseudo-scientific claptrap. Your posts are vastly off the topic. Kindly stop pasting other people’s writing and tell us what you actually think, or ask some questions. Otherwise you won’t be welcome here.

  9. Brigitte Allain on 09/09/2019 at 6:47 am said:

    I am showing you misrepresents Taalas and the science.

    We have 12 years to plan a sharp reduction in emissions. That would worry any normal person.

  10. Simon on 09/09/2019 at 9:01 am said:

    What claptrap Richard?
    Climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions – carbon dioxide and methane – is advancing inexorably. True
    The average atmospheric temperature has risen by one degree and the temperature in the Arctic has risen by more than two degrees. True
    The water in the oceans has warmed by approximately half a degree… True
    All those statements are true Richard, you can’t deny them.

  11. Richard Treadgold on 09/09/2019 at 9:07 am said:

    Brigitte, I quote Dr Taalas without misrepresentation — read my post!

    The science does not show 11 years to destruction, that’s the alarmist narrative.

  12. Richard Treadgold on 09/09/2019 at 9:11 am said:

    Hi Simon,

    It’s extremely unlikely that man-made CO2 and methane might significantly lift temperatures. The temperature changes cited are probably correct (though no period is mentioned), and I never denied them. But the implication that we caused them is a fabrication.

  13. Simon on 09/09/2019 at 3:07 pm said:

    Please post evidence for your beliefs. You always demand evidence yet you are willing to believe things that are verifiable untrue.
    Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have increased surface temperatures because infra-red radiation (i.e. heat) emitted by the Earth is concentrated at long wavelengths and is strongly absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane.

  14. Gwan on 09/09/2019 at 5:58 pm said:

    Simon the end of the world is not nigh.The world was warmer in the Medieval Warm Period than now and the Chinese were not burning billions of tonnes of coal.
    You do not see that the warmists have deliberately denied history and some are even saying that the MWP did not exist and then say that it was only in the Northern Hemisphere .
    No Simon the MWP was warmer than present and it was global .
    As the Secretary General of the WMO states the end of the world is not at hand .The Little Ice Age ended some time in the 1800s and the world has naturally warmed over 1 degree Celsius and the urban heat island effect has probably added another half a degree with poorly sited weather stations.
    Brigitte I think you to ought to learn some history when you quote Greenland’s ice melt .
    The Vikings farmed in Greenland 800 years ago and the icy cold forced them to leave with the onset of the Little Ice Age .
    History teaches us a lot but the warmists are unteachable .
    As I have said before Earthquakes are a much larger risk to New Zealand than global warming .
    Why don’t we issue an earth quake emergency ? It makes as much sense as a climate emergency don’t you think , Simon and Brigitte
    Graham

  15. Brigitte Allain on 09/09/2019 at 8:21 pm said:

    What are my thoughts on orthodox climate science and the dire emergency facing mankind?

    Well, the same as the IPCC of course. I defer to the judgement of experts. The GWPF is a gaggle of freaks and grifters.

  16. Gwan on 09/09/2019 at 10:22 pm said:

    I met John Maunder of New Zealand who was a member of the World Meteorological Organization who had attended the first climate Conference in Villach and the second conference in Rio de Janeiro .
    John had taught climate related subjects in universities around the world and he was New Zealand’s representative at those first two conferences .
    We had never met before and we were eating our lunch in Rotorua and we started talking about weather and global warming as it was then called.I said to John Augie Aur does not believe in global warming and then John said neither did he .
    Why I am very skeptical of the claims that are made is that when I examined the claims that biogenic methane from farmed livestock was a problem I found that this was a blatant lie .
    How can methane that is a byproduct of an animal eating vegetation that has absorbed CO2 be put in the same category as coal mining ?. For 10 years the methane atmospheric level flat lined between 1999 until 2008, were was the problem ? Biogenic methane is a cycle never adding a single atom of carbon to the atmosphere .
    I will now try to coax you towards some reality .Last year global coal mining exceeded 8 billion tonnes and that 8 billion tonnes would emit 22 billion tonne of CO2 and fugitive methane emissions could be over 60 million tonnes.
    Biogenic methane from farmed livestock has been estimated at 90 million tonnes world wide.
    90 minus 60 leaves 30 million tones of methane more and then divide 30 million into 22billion and the answer is 733 tonnes of CO2 for every tonne of Biogenic methane .
    733 to 1 but but but the methane is 25 times more potent than CO2 .
    OK that makes it 733 for coal to 25 for livestock .
    The coal has all been extracted from below ground level where it has been locked up for millions of years 22 billion tonnes of CO2 and 60 million tonnes of methane ,OK
    The vegetation has absorbed CO2 and animals release around 15 grams of methane from every kilogram dry weight of forage eaten The methane is broken down in around 8 years back into CO2 and H2O. And the cycle continues ,not a atom of carbon added .
    Now tell me how did biogenic methane get lumped in with coal mining and other fossil fuel combustion?
    Do I have to spell it out again .LIVE STOCK ADD NOT ONE ATOM OF CARBON TO THE ATMOSPHERE.
    This is the biggest travesty ever thought up by activists and adopted by politicians who obviously accept what they have been told without any scientific scrutiny and no thought process on their part . and this shows that there is a lot rotten with the whole climate change industry .
    Graham

  17. Richard Treadgold on 10/09/2019 at 10:10 am said:

    Brigitte,

    Well, the same as the IPCC of course. I defer to the judgement of experts.

    I regret to inform you that the IPCC has already lost the science arguments in many areas crucial to their hypothesis on AGW. They bring no evidence whatsoever to show man-made emissions might dangerously increase temperatures and none to show that dangerous temperatures are on the way. Their credibility is zero, their hypothesis dead.

    The GWPF is a gaggle of freaks and grifters.

    So you bring more abuse; if you try making a reasonable argument to refute something the GWPF said, you might change my mind, but abuse will never change my mind. Didn’t you realise that?

  18. Simon on 10/09/2019 at 2:53 pm said:

    Selective misquoting by the GWFP once again, their Finnish language translation skills are a bit lacking. What Petteri Taalas actually said was:

    “Climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions – carbon dioxide and methane – is advancing inexorably. The average atmospheric temperature has risen by one degree and the temperature in the Arctic has risen by more than two degrees. The water in the oceans has warmed by approximately half a degree,” says Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
    Increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are caused by the use of fossil fuels – coal, oil and natural gas – along with changes in land use. Fossil fuels currently account for approximately 85% of energy production, with nuclear, hydropower and renewable energy sources together making up the remaining 15%.
    “The significantly increased use of fossil fuels has been the biggest surprise. Time after time, we have had to update the worst forecasts issued in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) reports. In the last two years, emissions have increased by almost 2% per year, so we’re still not going in the right direction,” he adds.

    https://www.upm.com/news-and-stories/articles/2019/08/petteri-taalas-secretary-general-at-the-wmo-the-most-important-way-to-stop-the-climate-change-is-to-reduce-the-use-of-fossil-fuels/

  19. Brigitte Allain on 11/09/2019 at 7:57 am said:

    “the IPCC has already lost the science arguments in many areas crucial to their hypothesis on AGW.”

    Only fools believe such nonsense. Look here:

    https://gca.org/global-commission-on-adaptation/adapt-our-world

    The world’s readiness for the inevitable effects of the climate crisis is “gravely insufficient”, according to a report from global leaders.

    This lack of preparedness will result in poverty, water shortages and levels of migration soaring, with an “irrefutable toll on human life”, the report warns.

    Trillion-dollar investment is needed to avert “climate apartheid”, where the rich escape the effects and the poor do not, but this investment is far smaller than the eventual cost of doing nothing.

    The study says the greatest obstacle is not money but a lack of “political leadership that shakes people out of their collective slumber”. A “revolution” is needed in how the dangers of global heating are understood and planned for, and solutions are funded.

    The report has been produced by the Global Commission on Adaptation (GCA), convened by 18 nations including the UK. It has contributions from the former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, the Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, environment ministers from China, India and Canada, the heads of the World Bank and the UN climate and environment divisions, and others.

    Among the most urgent actions recommended are early-warning systems of impending disasters, developing crops that can withstand droughts and restoring mangrove swamps to protect coastlines, while other measures include painting roofs of homes white to reduce heatwave temperatures.

    In the foreword to the report, Ban, Gates and Kristalina Georgieva, the World Bank chief executive, write: “The climate crisis is here, now: massive wildfires ravage fragile habitats, city taps run dry, droughts scorch the land and massive floods destroy people’s homes and livelihoods. So far the response has been gravely insufficient.”

    Ban said: “I am really concerned about the lack of vision of political leaders. They are much more interested in getting elected and re-elected, and climate issues are not in their priorities. We are seeing this in the US with President Trump.”

    The report says severe effects are now inevitable and estimates that unless precautions are taken, 100 million more people could be driven into poverty by 2030. It says the number of people short of water each year will jump by 1.4 billion to 5 billion, causing unprecedented competition for water, fuelling conflict and migration. On the coasts, rising sea levels and storms will drive hundreds of millions from their homes, with costs of $1tn (£810bn) a year by 2050.

    Patrick Verkooijen, the chief executive of the Global Center on Adaptation, said: “What we truly see is the risk of a climate apartheid, where the wealthy pay to escape and the rest are left to suffer. That is a very profound moral injustice.”

    But the moral imperative alone will not drive change, he said, and the report also makes an economic case.

    “It is a nation’s self-interest to invest in adaptation,” Verkooijen said. The report estimates spending $1.8tn by 2030 in five key areas could yield $7.1tn in net benefits, by avoiding damages and increasing economic growth.

    The chair of the UK’s Environment Agency, Emma Howard Boyd, is a member of the GCA. The agency has warned England could run short of water within 25 years and increased coastal and river flooding may force some towns to be abandoned.

    In July, the UK government’s official advisers said they were shocked at the lack of proper plans to protect people from the effects of the climate crisis.

    Bob Ward, the policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, said: “As one of the governments that commissioned this important GCA report, the UK must heed its conclusions about the large economic benefits from adapting to those impacts of climate change that cannot now be avoided.

    “This summer has shown that the UK is not adapted to the changing climate of this century, with heavier rainfall and more frequent and intense heatwaves. Successive environment ministers have failed to give this issue the attention it needs, leading to greater damage to lives and livelihoods.”

    Cutting carbon emissions is vital, says the GCA report, but this has received nearly 20 times more funding than adaptation in recent years. Climate effects must be factored into decisions by those who make choices about the future, it says, such as business leaders. Verkooijen said nations should follow France in making it compulsory for large companies to report the climate risks to their businesses.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/10/climate-crisis-world-readiness-effects-gravely-insufficient-report

  20. Richard Treadgold on 11/09/2019 at 9:16 am said:

    Brigitte,

    Only fools believe such nonsense. Look here:

    More abuse, no evidence. You don’t know anything about it, do you? Cut and paste, cut and paste, endlessly parroting the alarmists. You should start to think about it for yourself. For example, in your link to the Global Centre on Adaptation are six videos from political leaders — no scientists and no science. Read the IPCC AR5, Chapter 8, Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing. This is the chapter cited to me by the IPCC Secretariat when I asked for evidence of dangerous man-made global warming. You’ll discover, just as I and a group of scientists I gathered together discovered, that there’s no evidence at all of a human cause of dangerous warming.

    Take a moment to reflect on what that means. I can show you the emails. The IPCC produced no evidence. Nobody else gives me evidence, and I’ve been asking for 15 years. Do you have evidence? I doubt it.

    The IPCC make none of these extreme statements, like “12 years to go” or “the sixth major extinction event”. That nonsense spouted by extremists is unsupported by science. As I said, stop yelling abuse, quote some facts and use reason to persuade me. Go on, take the risk that you’ll change my mind.

  21. Gwan on 11/09/2019 at 10:16 am said:

    A reply to Brigitte Allain.
    What you have written are quotes from people in high places pushing climate for there own agenda which is socialism and one world government .
    The greatest immediate threat is food security as the worlds population is calculated to rise by 2 billion by 2050.
    You can quote all the impending doom that is about to hit the world but that is only conjecture as wild weather events are trending downwards on all studies.
    The United Nations stated in the latest report on land and food security that countries should endeavor to restrict greenhouse gas emissions in a way that does not THREATEN food production
    Any one that knows any thing about weather and how the the theory of global warming works knows that warmer air holds more moisture and that means more precipitation that means less droughts .
    Then we have the stand by the Greens who hate dams and water storage and irrigation projects .
    The stand that they take is a crime against humanity
    The world will need 25% more food but irrigation projects are halted in this and many other countries because of this almost religious hate of water storage .
    If you bothered to read my previous post ( instead of quoting the Guardian which pushes climate change and will not tolerate any dissent) you would see how simple facts have been distorted by activists and the lies are accepted as factual .
    I am referring to biogenic methane from livestock and this is only one of many lies that so many news outlets quote as facts .
    I will repeat here the final statement that I made to the select committee on the Zero Carbon bill .

    Farmed livestock do not add one atom of carbon to the atmosphere and they should never have been
    included in any countries emission profile. Biogenic methane is cyclic and is not a problem.

    This fact alone proves that the whole climate change movement is a scam .
    Why try and restrict food production around the world when the greatest immediate threat to the world is food security ,
    Climate change is being used as a political weapon to try and persuade people like you Brigitte to agitate towards socialism……in plain language to become a useful fool for the cause .
    We have mane cities and councils declaring a climate emergencies which is plainly stupid and makes as much sense as declaring an earthquake emergency .
    Graham

  22. Brigitte Allain on 11/09/2019 at 3:35 pm said:

    The scientists may not be completely right but they are certainly not wrong in principle.

    It is absurd to suggest you know more. You know nothing and refuse to learn – there’s masses of evidence.

    370 billion tonnes of ice lost from Greenland in the past year for a start…

  23. Gwan on 12/09/2019 at 9:36 am said:

    Reply to Brigitte,
    You don’t seem to want to learn.
    We see lots of quotes about Greenland and ice melting and as I told you earlier the Vikings farmed in Greenland and left when the Ice advanced .
    Warmists like to quote ice melt in Greenland and yes the NET loss of ice from 1981 to 2010 was 103 billion tonne per year and if it carried on at this rate it would take over 12500 years to lose half of the ice mass’
    The Ice mass in Greenland is 2’600’000’000.000.000 tonnes that is 2.6 million billion tonnes , a lot of ice
    On a graph of the total ice, the ice loss looks like a horizontal line as it is such an tiny percentage and in many years the estimated loss is less than the error bars .
    The other mistake that you make is that the summary of policy makers issued by the IPCC is a political statement and science has been disregarded since the Kyoto summit when the Kyoto Accord was launched .Scientist have no say in what the IPCC come out with.
    Something for you to think about .
    Graham

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