March 25, 2014
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N.-sponsored scientific body, began a five-day general meeting Tuesday in Yokohama as part of efforts to finalize its latest assessment report.
About 500 scientists and government representatives from around the world will negotiate and eventually agree on a report prepared by Working Group II of the influential panel before releasing it Monday.
The report is a part of the fifth assessment report from the panel that comprises three working-group reports as well as a synthesis report that is scheduled to be published in October.
Working Group II discusses the vulnerability and exposure of human and natural systems, the observed impacts and future risks of climate change, and the potential for and limits to adaptation.
Climate change over the 21st century is expected to pose a wide range of serious risks to human security, according to the group’s draft obtained by Kyodo News.
Heat stress, extreme precipitation, flooding, drought and water scarcity pose risks in urban areas for people, assets, economies and ecosystems, with risks amplified for those lacking essential infrastructure and services or living in exposed areas, the draft said.
Without adaptation measures, hundreds of millions of people will be affected by coastal flooding and displaced due to land loss by 2100 due to climate change, it said.
Last September in Stockholm, Sweden, the IPCC reported, based on findings by Working Group I, that climate change science now shows with 95 percent certainty that human activity is the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century. The IPCC will review the Working Group III contribution to the report next month in Berlin.
The international community is working to reach a new anti-global warming pact by 2015 to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required only rich countries to take action.
It is the first time that the IPCC has held a plenary session in Japan. The IPCC has released four comprehensive assessment reports since it was formed in 1988 to help policymakers, with the last one issued in 2007.
(Kyodo)