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