U.N. panel to blame mankind for global warming, explain 'hiatus'

1 of 14. A truck engine is tested for pollution exiting its exhaust pipe as California Air Resources field representatives (unseen) work a checkpoint set up to inspect heavy-duty trucks traveling near the Mexican-U.S. border in Otay Mesa, California September 10, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Mike Blake

By Anna Ringstrom

STOCKHOLM | Mon Sep 23, 2013 8:52am EDT

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A United Nations panel of experts met on Monday to review a draft report that raises the probability that climate change is man-made to 95 percent and warns of ever more extreme weather unless governments take strong action.

Scientists and officials from more than 110 governments began a four-day meeting in Stockholm to edit and approve the 31-page draft that also tries to explain a "hiatus" in the pace of global warming this century despite rising greenhouse gas emissions.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will go through the document line by line and present it on Friday as a main guide for governments, which have agreed to work out a United Nations deal by the end of 2015 to fight global warming.

"I expect the world will understand the simplicity and the gravity of the message that we provide," Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, said after the opening session.

Climate change "will transform our lives, our economies and indeed the way our planet will function in the future," Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme, told delegates.

A shift towards a greener economy, based on renewable energies, would hold multiple benefits for society, he said.

IPCC drafts seen by Reuters say human activities, primarily burning fossil fuels, are "extremely likely" - at least a 95 percent probability - to be the main cause of global warming since the 1950s.

That is up from "very likely", or at least a 90 percent probability, in the last report in 2007 and 66 percent in 2001, draining hopes that natural variations in the climate might be the cause.

SEA LEVEL RISE

"There is high confidence that this has warmed the ocean, melted snow and ice, raised global mean sea level, and changed some climate extremes," the draft says of man-made warming.

Most impacts are projected to get worse unless governments cut greenhouse gas emissions sharply, it says. The report, by 259 authors in 39 countries, is the first of four due in the next year about climate change by the IPCC.

One of the hardest issues for the IPCC may be accounting for why temperatures have not risen much this century. "Fifteen-year-long hiatus periods are common," in historical climate records, an accompanying 127-page technical summary says.

A combination of natural variations, including a cyclical dip in energy emitted by the sun, and factors such as volcanic eruptions - which send ash into the atmosphere and help block sunlight - have caused the hiatus, it says, predicting a resumption of warming in coming years.

The report also finds that the atmosphere may be slightly less sensitive to a build-up of carbon dioxide than expected.

Thomas Stocker, a scientist from the University of Bern who is co-chair of the U.N. panel, urged delegates to produce a clear document "with no compromises to scientific accuracy."

The draft says temperatures could rise by up to 4.8 degrees Celsius (8.6 Fahrenheit) this century, but could be held to a rise of 0.3C (0.5F) with deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Governments have promised to limit a rise in temperatures to 2 degrees C (3.6 F) above pre-industrial times.

The range differs from scenarios of 1.1 to 6.4C gains by 2100 in 2007, largely because of new computer models.

The draft also says sea levels, which rose 19 cm (7.5 inches) in the 20th century, could rise by an extra 26 to 81 cm towards the end of this century, threatening coasts.

That rise is more than was projected in 2007, although that report did not take full account of melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica.

The report is the main guide for governments planning action against global warming and steps to mitigate its effects. It will face extra scrutiny after the 2007 report exaggerated the rate of melt of the Himalayan glaciers. A review of the IPCC said that the main conclusions were unaffected by the error.

Environmentalists called for quick action. Greenpeace said governments should heed the report and shift to clean energies. The WWF's Samantha Smith said: "The natural world is sending a distress signal and we're ignoring it at our own peril."

(Writing by Alister Doyle; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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WRAPUP 2-IMF trims global growth forecast, sees bumpy recovery

* IMF sees world growth of 3.3 pct in 2013, down two-tenths

* IMF warns against fatigue in battling European debt crisis

* Japan economy to expand with new monetary steps

* Fund estimates first Fed rate increase in 2016

* Emerging economies picking up steam again

By Lesley Wroughton

WASHINGTON, April 16 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday trimmed projections for global economic growth for this year and next to take into account sharp government spending cuts in the United States and the latest struggles of recession-stricken Europe.

While it said economic prospects had improved in recent months with a fading of financial risks, it warned Europe against relaxing efforts to combat its debt crisis given the messy bailout in Cyprus and a political stalemate in Italy.

The IMF raised its forecast for Japan, welcoming the Bank of Japan's aggressive new monetary stimulus, which it said would boost growth and help vanquish deflation.

"While some tail risks have decreased it is not time for policymakers to relax," IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard told a news conference to discuss the World Economic Outlook.

The report was released as global financial leaders gathered for the semiannual meetings of the IMF and World Bank later this week.

The IMF cut its 2013 forecast for global growth to 3.3 percent, down from its January projection of 3.5 percent. It also trimmed its 2014 forecast to 4.0 percent from 4.1 percent.

A more subdued outlook for the United States and for the euro zone led it to lower its growth forecast for advanced economies to 1.2 percent for 2013 while it kept its 2014 forecast at 2.2 percent.

While it lowered its projections for growth in emerging economies to 5.3 percent for this year, it also said growth was already accelerating and would hit 5.7 percent in 2014. Growth has returned to a healthy pace in China and activity is expected to recover in Brazil next year, the IMF said.

Strong domestic demand in sub-Saharan Africa should help boost growth in both resource-rich and poorer economies in that region, the Fund added. Meanwhile, growth in the Middle East and North Africa is likely to dip this year as oil production slows in some oil-exporting nations and "Arab Spring" countries struggle with political transitions.

"Notwithstanding old dangers and new turbulence, the near-term risk picture has improved as recent policy actions in Europe and the United States have addressed some of the gravest short-term risks," the Fund said.

BOJ ON TRACK BUT NEEDS HELP

Blanchard said the dramatic overhaul of monetary policy announced by the Bank of Japan was a necessary step and he hoped it would succeed.

The IMF said inflation in Japan would likely rise above zero in 2013 and temporarily jump in 2014 and 2015 in response to an increase in consumption taxes.

The Bank of Japan unleashed an intense burst of monetary stimulus earlier this month, pledging to inject about $1.4 trillion into the economy in less than two years, a major shift from its previous incremental steps.

Tokyo came under fire before a meeting of officials from the Group of 20 leading economies in February for comments that suggested it was targeting specific levels for the yen with its easing of monetary and fiscal policy. The yen last week hit a four-year low against the dollar.

But the IMF said it found "no large deviations of the major currencies from medium-term fundamentals" and dismissed talk of a "currency war" as overblown.

"We think it is a logical consequence of appropriate monetary policy," Blanchard said when asked about the yen's sharp decline.

The Fund said the U.S. dollar and euro "appear moderately overvalued" and the Chinese renminbi "moderately undervalued." Evidence on the value of the yen "is mixed," it added.

FIRST FED RATE INCREASE IN 2016

The IMF said Europe and the United States had dodged bullets by enacting policies that laid to rest the notion of a euro zone breakup and the possibility the world's richest economy would fall off a "fiscal cliff" of tax increases and budget cuts.

However, it suggested an easier monetary policy might be warranted in the euro zone.

"Given moderating inflation pressure, monetary policy should remain very accommodative. Room is still available for further conventional easing, as inflation is projected to fall below the European Central Bank's target in the medium term," it said.

The IMF forecast economic contractions in France, Spain and Italy this year. IMF economist Jorg Decressin said Italy's economic policy was on the right track and prospects would brighten next year with less need for government spending cuts. He also said fiscal policy in France is "appropriate" even if the country misses the goal to trim the deficit below an EU ceiling of 3 percent of GDP in 2013.

The Fund also made clear that, while a worst-case outcome had been avoided, fiscal policy in Washington had tightened more than it had expected - a key reason for its forecast downgrade.

It said across-the-board spending cuts known as the "sequester" would shave about 0.3 percentage points from gross domestic product this year, the IMF said. If the sequester continued into the next fiscal year, it could trim another 0.2 percentage points from GDP growth, the IMF added.

Blanchard said without fiscal consolidation, U.S. economic growth would probably be between 1.5 percent to 2 percent higher this year.

As for U.S. monetary policy, the IMF said it expects the Federal Reserve to hold interest rates near zero into early 2016, although it cautioned that the Fed may need to tighten policy earlier "should upside risks to growth materialize."

The Fed last month maintained a controversial program of buying $85 billion of bonds a month, while pledging to keep interest rates near zero at least until unemployment falls to 6.5 percent, so long as inflation stays under 2.5 percent.

The Fund said developing a comprehensive medium-term deficit reduction framework that reformed so-called entitlement programs and raised additional revenues should be the top priority for the United States.

"Such a comprehensive plan should place fiscal consolidation on a gradual path in the short term, in light of the fragile recovery and limited room for monetary policy," the IMF added.

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2013 economic outlook for global chemical industry

The 2013 outlook for the global chemical industry—a $3 trillion enterprise that impacts virtually every other sector of the economy—is the topic of the cover story in this week's edition of Chemical & Engineering News. C&EN is the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.

Titled "World Chemical Outlook" and compiled by a team of 10 editors and correspondents, the annual feature forecasts chemical industry growth rates in various regions, including a modest 1.9 percent increase in the United States (compared to 1.5 percent growth in 2012) and a 0.5 percent increase in Europe (an improvement from the 2.0 percent contraction in 2012).

The story describes several bright spots dotting that generally overcast landscape. U.S. chemical manufacturers, for instance, can look forward to another year of low-priced natural gas to fuel their facilities and provide cheap raw materials. Producers of "fine chemicals," highly pure substances produced in relatively small amounts for medications, pesticides and other products, should do better than the industry as a whole. Likewise, makers of scientific instruments for the energy, environmental, forensics and food markets also are upbeat about 2013 sales.

More information: "World Chemical Outlook"—cen.acs.org/articles/91/i2/World-Chemical-Outlook.html

Provided by American Chemical Society

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