The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) sponsored a Congressional briefing featuring Dr. Robert T. Watson, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Dr. Watson will present the findings of the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report. Congressman John W. Olver (D-MA), co-chair of the Climate Change Caucus, provided opening remarks.

In late January of this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the first section of the Third Assessment Report. The report, representing the efforts of more than 2,000 of the world’s top scientists over several years, is the most comprehensive and authoritative study on climate change ever. The first section of the report focuses on the science behind climate change, and was unanimously approved by 100 IPCC member governments in Shanghai, China. The second section of the report looks at the impacts to human and natural systems from the climate changes documented and projected in the first section. It was also recently approved by 100 IPCC member governments in Geneva, Switzerland. The third section of the report focuses on mitigation of climate change and approval is expected by March 3, 2001.

Using evidence gathered around the world from multiple sources, the report points toward dramatic, human-induced changes occurring in the world’s climate. Among the findings of the report are warning signs of increased global warming:

• The global average surface temperature has increased 1.08 degrees (Fahrenheit) during the 20th century;



• Snow cover and ice have decreased, with glaciers in non-polar regions in retreat during the 20th century, and a 40% decline in Arctic sea-ice thickness during late summer and early autumn in recent decades; and



• Global average sea level has risen between 0.1 and 0.2 meters during the 20th century and global-ocean heat content has risen as well.

The report predicts a rise in global temperatures of 2.5 to 10.4 degrees (Fahrenheit) and a rise in sea level of between 9 and 88 cm in the next one hundred years. While these may seem like small numbers to some, on the global scale they are of enormous importance and, as detailed in the second section of the report, directly impact the vitality of both human and natural systems.

The IPCC report has laid to rest many of the questions raised by skeptics concerning the actual science of climate change. According to the IPCC, confidence in the scientific methods of analyzing climate change, from the ability of computer models to produce accurate predictions, to the detail of the global temperature record, has never been higher. The global debate on climate change is shifting. The focus is moving increasingly to how the nations of the world can change their activities to mitigate climate change and its impacts by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.