2 April 2007Planet Ark
Following are details about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up in 1988 by the United Nations to help guide governments. It draws on work by about 2,500 specialists from more than 130 nations and last issued reports in 2001.
CALENDAR
PARIS, Feb 2 - The first IPCC report, an overview of the science of global warming, said that it was "very likely" or at least 90 percent certain that mankind was to blame for most of the warming in the last half century.
The previous report in 2001 had put the probability at "likely", or at least 66 percent. The new report projected a "best estimate" that temperatures would rise by 1.8 to 4.0 degrees Celsius (3.2-7.2 Fahrenheit) this century.
BRUSSELS, April 6 - The second report will detail the likely impacts of climate change around the globe, such as on health, farming and water availability.
BANGKOK, May 4 - The third report, "Mitigation of Climate Change", will analyse ways to fight global warming, including options and costs for reining in emissions of greenhouse gases.
VALENCIA, Spain, Nov 16 - A fourth "Synthesis Report" will sum up all the findings.
PAST IPCC REPORTS -- 2001, 1995, 1990
- The 2001 study said there was "new and stronger evidence" linking human activities to rising temperatures.
- In 1995, the IPCC report concluded that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate", the first recognition that it was more that 50 percent likely that humans were to blame.
That report helped pave the way to the UN's Kyoto Protocol in 1997, which obliges 35 industrial nations to cut greenhouse gases to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
- The IPCC's first report in 1990 outlined risks of warming and played a role in prompting governments to agree a 1992 UN climate convention that set a non-binding goal of stabilising greenhouse gases at 1990 levels by 2000. The target was not met.
