U.N. facing backlash on emissions action plan

Amelia Hill, Juliette Jowit and Robin McKie
The Hindu, 30 April

THE WORLD'S leading climate change experts will this week outline highly controversial plans to save the world from global warming. Their proposals — which include a major expansion in nuclear power, the use of GM crops to boost biofuel production, and reliance on unproven technologies, including the underground storage of carbon dioxide — will put the United Nations' climate group on a collision course with a host of environmental groups.

The proposals for saving the planet are outlined in a draft version of "Mitigation of Climate Change" by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This is the third part of the panel's 2007 analysis of global warming. Previous reports have focused on the science of climate change and its likely impacts. The third and final report concentrates on measures that can be taken to save the Earth from the worst, most catastrophic effects of rising temperatures triggered by the pumping of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Crucially the IPCC panel insists that it is "technically and economically" feasible to stabilise greenhouse emissions — but only if countries are prepared to pay the extra costs of transforming everything from energy supply networks to agriculture to waste. By 2030, the report estimates that the cost of stabilising greenhouse gases at levels that are considered the maximum for avoiding catastrophic climate change would cost between 0.2 per cent and 0.6 per cent of global wealth.

As well as plans for more nuclear power, genetically modified biofuels, and carbon capture and storage, the report sets out a vision of the future that is a mixture of existing policies, such as energy efficiency and renewable energy from wind and wave farms, and more futuristic ideas for hydrogen car fleets and "intelligent" buildings which can control energy use.

On Saturday night, Tony Juniper, executive director of the environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth, said far more fundamental lifestyle changes were needed than had been considered by the U.N. group. Nuclear reactors are dangerous and land clearance and chemical pesticides and fertilizers used to grow fuel crops can cause huge environmental damage, he added. "Structural change to the economy, behaviour change and culture change — those have to be elements in a world of decarbonisation," said Mr. Juniper.

However, other groups criticised the IPCC for not being sufficiently robust in its support for technological fixes to the world's climate problems.

Bruno Comby, president of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy, said nuclear power should provide an even bigger proportion of energy than that envisaged by the U.N. scientists and politicians. "Nuclear is not the only solution, but it's the biggest solution," he said.

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006