Stern:
Confused climate skeptics
A
leading British climate change economist warned Tuesday
that those who doubt the science of global warming are confused
— and said their skepticism should not derail efforts
to strike a climate deal in Denmark.
02/12/2009 06:20 - Nicholas Stern (photo above), who wrote
a British government report on global warming, said hackers
who posted documents snatched from the climate research
unit at the University of East Anglia had muddled the debate
at a critical moment.
Critics
of the science behind global warming argue the hacked documents
show academics manipulated data to strengthen their argument
backing the phenomenon.
"It
(the incident) has created confusion and confusion never
helps scientific discussions," Stern told reporters
in London.
Governments
have begun final preparations for the 192-nation conference
in Copenhagen next week, where parameters will be set for
a new climate change agreement. The US and China, two of
the world's biggest polluters, have set targets for reducing
greenhouse gas emissions, and Stern said it was vital that
countries managed to agree on measures to tackle global
warming.
"We
have a moment now when we could get a strategy agreed,"
he said. "If it were to dissolve in disarray it would
not be easy to put this momentum back together again."
He
said that if countries did not manage to reach agreement,
world temperatures could rise by five degrees Celsius (nine
degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, making much
of the world uninhabitable.
Some
of the scientists whose private e-mails were stolen by hackers
have said they believe those who leaked the documents had
deliberately tried to undermine the Copenhagen conference.
Da
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
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