Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

One seemingly minor and unreported component of the recent UN climate talks in Doha highlights the drawbacks of old-school scientific assessments and the need to modernize the IPCC process. It is especially relevant given last week's leak of draft IPCC reports and the ensuing discussion about changing the arduous and close IPCC...[read more]

The claim by the Watts up with that blog that statements in a leaked draft of the upcoming IPCC assessment report is "game-changing" is not wrong scientifically, it makes no logical sense. The supposedly game-changing evidence - that there may have been a great change in the sun's impact on the climate than previously thought - is just...[read more]

The tremendous complexity combined with the short-term and local variability of climate make accurately forecasting global climate change one of the most challenging and daunting tasks ever undertaken by the scientific community. Nonetheless, spurred on by growing number of signs that significant climate changes were under way, climate...[read more]

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Carbon capture and storage is not going to save us. We must wean ourselves off fossil fuels as quickly as possible. It has emerged that it is now likely that just one carbon capture and storage project in the UK will receive funding from the European Investment Bank. This is the Don Valley Project, which has already received €180...[read more]

Managing earthquakes caused by human activity is an issue that deserves more attention than it has received to date. It can and should be done with today’s tools, but it hasn’t been done everywhere. A timely new report documents known earthquakes caused by human activities, none of which have been caused by CCS projects.[read more]

India has dramatically expanded its reliance on solar power over the past two years. Solar installations have sprouted across the nation and costs for this clean energy have dropped, according to a new report, Laying the Foundation for a Bright Future, released today by NRDC and our New Delhi-based partner Council on Energy, Environment...[read more]

Back in November the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the executive summary for a “special report” called Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX for shorthand). Today, the IPCC released the full technical report that underlies the executive summary. In...[read more]

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a “special report” (that’s what they call topical reports they publish in between their better known comprehensive assessments) today that is worth a close look for anyone who wants to start getting ready for a future with weirder and often harsher weather.About a year ago I...[read more]

Yes we can. Two years ago, scientists from Stanford University applied the mantra of President Obama’s 2008 campaign to renewable energy, when they published a plan to meet the world’s entire energy demand with wind, water, and sunlight by 2030 – using today’s technology. Similarly, the International Panel on Climate Change’s new Special Report on Renewable Energy includes scenarios, in which renewables supply 80% of the global energy consumption by 2050. The good news is: We can achieve the transition to a low-carbon renewables-based energy sector with today’s technology.[read more]

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s new report, Special Report Renewable Energy Sources (SRREN), is due out soon. The summary for policymakers (pdf) is available now. The questions this report addresses are important: how much electricity and other energy can be supplied by renewables? At what cost? This report (more so the...[read more]

Yesterday I received a joint press release from a group of renewable energy trade associations. It touted a new report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the potential growth of renewable energy by 2050. The report has already garnered an impressive array of headlines, such as "Renewable Energy Can Power the...[read more]

So at the invitation of Andrew Freedman of Climate Central, I've been attending to the congressional hearings about climate this morning. I still think it something of a pointless charade; I doubt a lot of opinions are swayed, and the quality of discourse swings between awful and bizarre. But it provides a rich vein of ore for quote...[read more]

Numerous media outlets seized on a dubious January London Sunday Times report which claimed that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2007 statement on Amazon rain forests was “unsubstantiated” and without scientific basis in order to attack the IPCC’s credibility and global warming science in general. However,...[read more]