So the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has, to the surprise of absolutely no one, produced its most confident and unequivocal verdict on the state of our planet’s climate and our role in disrupting it.
Its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), published today, looked at how far it could be concluded that global warming was driven by us and our carbon emissions. And the answer, described by several speakers on the media today, is that there is a 95% probability that it is.
A great deal of scientific expertise went into compiling this IPCC report. A total of 209 ‘lead authors’ and 50 ‘review editors’ drawn from 39 countries, and more than 600 ‘contributing authors’ from 32 countries, contributed to the preparation of AR5. A summary of the report for policymakers is available here.
But the UK government’s chief scientist, Mark Walport, probably put the point as well as anyone today when speaking on BBC Radio 4 this morning. He said: “The evidence is absolutely rock solid. We know that we’ve emitted half a trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide. The issue is that scientists have got to communicate this.
“There are some people who don’t want to confront the policy decisions and the easiest way to do that is to rubbish the science.”
It’s just a matter of time before the rubbishing begins.