Warming Acceleration Inevitable, G8 Leaders Warned

LONDON, UK, July 5, 2005 (ENS) - Scientists with the world’s largest climate modeling project are calling for a complete phaseout of fossil fuel emissions to stabilize the global climate. Even if humans were to totally stop emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere right now, they said Monday, "a potentially dangerous level of global warming cannot be ruled out."

Directing their comments to the Group of Eight, G8, leaders gathering in Edinburgh tomorrow evening for their annual meeting, the scientists with climateprediction.net released their latest results at the Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition in London on Monday. It was selected to be one of only 25 UK science projects showcased at the Royal Society, the UK's national academy of sciences.

Physicist and Oxford University professor Dr. Myles Allen initiated the project five years ago. He said, "Our results show that stabilization, even at today's greenhouse gas concentrations, may already be an unacceptable risk.

Dr. Myles Allen, from the atmospheric physics department at Oxford University, is founder of climateprediction.net (Photo courtesy UCAR)

The climateprediction.net project has completed over 100,000 simulations of the Earth's climate, using spare processing time on personal computers donated by members of the public.

Allen says until more research is done, the safest course is to stop burning fossil fuels.

"Until we know more," Allen said, "we need to plan on bringing levels down again, by eventually phasing out fossil fuel emissions altogether. This goes far beyond anything currently on the table at the G8 summit."

The draft climate agreement for the G8 leaders still does not state that the Earth's climate is warming. In addition to this basic point of contention, all G8 leaders except the United States have ratified the Kyoto Protocol - an amendment to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change which requires them to lower greenhouse gas emissions an average of 5.2 percent by 2012.

With about five percent of the world's population, the United States emits roughly 23 percent of the world's heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

In advance of the G8 summit, President George W. Bush urged other G8 countries to shift the debate on climate change away from limits on greenhouse gas emissions towards new energy technologies that would reduce environmental harm without affecting economic growth.

"My hope is - and I think the hope of [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair is - to move beyond the Kyoto debate and to collaborate on new technologies that will enable the United States and other countries to diversify away from fossil fuels so that the air will be cleaner and that we have the economic and national security that comes from less dependence on foreign sources of oil," said Bush in an interview last week with ITV’s Tonight with Trevor McDonald.

President George W. Bush says technology, not emissions, should be the focus of climate talks. (Photo by Eric Draper courtesy The White House)

"I think you can grow your economy and at the same time do a better job of harnessing greenhouse gases," said Bush. "That's exactly what I intend to talk to our partners about. I don't think you can expect any American leader to wreck the economy, nor as an ally and a friend of America and a trading partner of America should you want us to wreck our economy."

"On the other hand, what you would want us to do is to use our investment capacity, as well as our research capacity to come up with new ways to power our economy, new ways to energize our economy," he said. "And that's precisely what we're doing, and I look forward to sharing those ideas."

British Prime Minister Blair, who hosts the G8 summit at the Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland from tomorrow through Friday, has made mitigating climate change and ending poverty in Africa his key priorities. The G8 countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The president of the European Union is also part of these discussions.

Bush noted that the United States has spent over $20 billion since he took office in 2001 "to not only research the issue of greenhouse gases, but to develop technologies that will enable us to diversify away from fossil fuels. And I look forward to discussing this agenda with not only the G8 leaders, but also with the leaders of developing countries, countries like India and China.”

Some of the discussions at the G8 summit will involve ways to share technology with India and China “so that we can all work together to clean up the environment, and at the same time have sustained economic growth," Bush said.

Climateprediction.net uses globes to show a comparison. Current summer temperatures are on the rear globe, compared with a possible response to current greenhouse gas concentrations in a low sensitivity model in the middle globe, and a possible response to current greenhouse gas concentrations in a high sensitivity model on the front globe. (Photo courtesy climateprediction.net)

Climateprediction.net Chief Scientist David Stainforth commented, "The atmosphere and oceans can take decades to adjust to reach new temperatures. Just because today's climate is tolerable doesn't mean today's greenhouse gas levels are safe."

"Some models indicate a global warming of over four degrees centigrade with today's greenhouse gases," said Stainforth. "The further we let greenhouse gas concentrations rise above today's levels the more likely we are to see an even greater rise in temperature."

The United States could be in for longer, hotter summers unless greenhouse gas emissions are curbed. "Summer temperatures could rise a lot more over continental North America," Stainforth warned.