A special intergovernmental expert group comprising more than 1,000 scientists from different countries estimates that global temperatures rose by 0.6 degrees centigrade during the last 100 years. I serve as deputy chairman of this group that compiles detailed climate-change reports every five years.
One should say that 0.6 degrees centigrade is not very impressive. The planet has experienced ice ages and warming periods alike. In other words, the global climatic system can hardly be called stable. Instead of discussing global-warming trends of the last 25-30 years, we should try to find out why scientists have failed so far in explaining this process. Are natural factors or man's impact responsible for this? Is the global-warming process influenced by both factors? Or is man's impact on his environment the main culprit? This is the main problem.
All serious climate-related decisions, be it the 1992 UN Climate Change Convention or the Kyoto Protocol, cannot be called scientifically sound.
As I see it, the concerned parties should have answered some questions, before adopting specific decisions. For example, what damage can climatic changes inflict? Second, what maximum permissible carbon-dioxide concentrations will not seriously harm human health? It goes without saying that correct treatment depends on a correct diagnosis. And the implementation of various decisions sometimes requires tremendous appropriations.
On the contrary, the European Union believes that global temperatures should not increase by more than two degrees. Some European politicians alone are writing that atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations should not exceed 400 ppmv. Current concentrations total 379 ppmv. These people claim that disaster is just round the corner. Still, no one has proved yet that 400 ppmv is tantamount to disaster.
It will cost $20 trillion to implement a set of tough measures that would ensure carbon-dioxide concentrations to the tune of 400 ppmv. At the same time, if one sets maximum permissible carbon-dioxide concentrations at 750 ppmv, then it would cost just $2 trillion to ensure such concentrations. I personally believe that 700-750-ppmv concentrations are fine. In my opinion, global temperatures can soar by 4-4.5 degrees. The group's forecast estimates that global temperatures will rise by 1.5-5.5 degrees within the next 100 years.
But what about those various theoretical global warming risks? Glaciers and the Greenland ice shield can melt away, causing the ocean waters to rise by 5-10 centimeters. The ocean level would rise by 1-2 meters, if Greenland loses its glaciers completely. However, this could only happen several thousand, rather than several hundred, years from now. Therefore, I think it would be ridiculous to talk about an impending disaster that would be caused by global warming ten years from now.
In my mind, scientists should continue their research, answering vitally important questions in the area of climate change. These projects are mostly implemented at the insistence of Russian scientists, who have tried to launch an international discussion of two concepts: maximum permissible air-temperature increases and maximum permissible carbon-dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere during the past ten years. However, the international expert group for climate changes has turned down these proposals on a regular basis. That expert group did not establish a working group for conducting preliminary studies of climate-change specifics that would help assess maximum possible influences on the global climate before 2001.
The enactment of the Kyoto Protocol is something positive. Although the protocol will only be partly effective, it will nonetheless help stabilize and normalize the climatic system. As I have already said, the Kyoto Accords virtually lack any scientific substantiation. Only 25% of all countries will cut backon carbon-dioxide emissions, but it is clear that this problem must be tackled by the entire world.
Yury Izrael is the director of the Global Climate and Ecology Institute of the Russian Hydrometeorological Committee and the Russian Academy of Sciences.
