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Open
Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations
December 13, 2007
His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General, United Nations
New York, NY
United States of America
Dear Mr. Secretary-General,
Re: UN climate conference taking the World in
entirely the wrong direction
It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural
phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages.
Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories
all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies
from unanticipated changes in temperature, precipitation,
winds and other climatic variables. We therefore need
to equip nations to become resilient to the full range
of these natural phenomena by promoting economic growth
and wealth generation.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) has issued increasingly alarming conclusions
about the climatic influences of human-produced carbon
dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting gas that is essential to
plant photosynthesis. While we understand the evidence
that has led them to view CO2 emissions as harmful, the
IPCC’s conclusions are quite inadequate as justification
for implementing policies that will markedly diminish
future prosperity. In particular, it is not established
that it is possible to significantly alter global climate
through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top
of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow
development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction
is likely to increase human suffering from future climate
change rather than to decrease it.
The IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers are the most widely
read IPCC reports amongst politicians and non-scientists
and are the basis for most climate change policy formulation.
Yet these Summaries are prepared by a relatively small
core writing team with the final drafts approved line-by-line
by government representatives. The great majority of IPCC
contributors and reviewers, and the tens of thousands
of other scientists who are qualified to comment on these
matters, are not involved in the preparation of these
documents. The Summaries therefore cannot properly be
represented as a consensus view among experts.
Contrary to the impression left by the IPCC Summary reports:
- Recent observations of phenomena such as glacial retreats,
sea-level rise and the migration of temperature-sensitive
species are not evidence for abnormal climate change,
for none of these changes has been shown to lie outside
the bounds of known natural variability.
- The average rate of warming of 0.1 - 0. 2 degrees
Celsius per decade recorded by satellites during the
late 20th century falls within known natural rates of
warming and cooling over the last 10,000 years.
- Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives,
acknowledge that today’s computer models cannot predict
climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer
projections of temperature rises, there has been no
net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature
plateau follows a late 20th century period of warming
is consistent with the continuation today of natural
multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling.
In stark contrast to the often repeated assertion that
the science of climate change is ‘settled’, significant
new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on
the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming.
But because IPCC working groups were generally instructed
to consider work published only through May 2005, these
important findings are not included in their reports;
i.e., the IPCC assessment reports are already materially
outdated.
The UN climate conference in Bali has been planned to
take the world along a path of severe CO2 restrictions,
ignoring the lessons apparent from the failure of the
Kyoto Protocol, the chaotic nature of the European CO2
trading market, and the ineffectiveness of other costly
initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Balanced
cost/benefit analyses provide no support for the introduction
of global measures to cap and reduce energy consumption
for the purpose of restricting CO2 emissions. Furthermore,
it is irrational to apply the 'precautionary principle'
because many scientists recognize that both climatic coolings
and warmings are realistic possibilities over the medium-term
future.
The current UN focus on "fighting climate change",
as illustrated in the November 27th UN Development Programme's
Human Development Report, is distracting governments from
adapting to the threat of inevitable natural climate changes,
whatever forms they may take. National and international
planning for such changes is needed, with a focus on helping
our most vulnerable citizens adapt to conditions that
lie ahead. Attempts to prevent global climate change from
occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic
misallocation of resources that would be better spent
on humanity’s real and pressing problems.
Yours faithfully,
Independent
scientists, engineers and economists active in research
of climate-related areas,
Other
professional persons knowledgeable about climate change
who expressed support for the open letter to the UN Secretary-General.
Copy to: Heads of State of countries of the signatory
persons.
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