The post you are reporting:
Propaganda increases the 2.9 % to 19 %...........
Global warming: What the leading scientists say
The UN panel looking at the impact of human activity on the planet is about to release its latest report.
Representing the peer-reviewed work of hundreds of leading climate scientists, it offers no cause for
scepticism or complacency
A lot has changed since the world's leading climate scientists last gathered in the name of the U
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007, to put the finishing touches to their
fourth landmark assessment of the state of global warming.
Since the release of that report in Geneva, the world has been through a prolonged and continuing
economic downturn. This was arguably good for the environment in the short term, because th
resulting slump in manufacturing had the effect of curbing the growth in damaging carbon emissions.
But in the longer term, the recession has been profoundly damaging, because it has knocked green
issues firmly off the political agenda. While renewable technologies such as wind and solar powe
can benefit from free sources of energy, the initial investment is huge and the rewards will not be
felt until much further down the line.
The cause of reducing emissions was dealt a further significant blow at the annual UN climate change
conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, when the world's governments failed to agree on
legally-binding targets to reduce their CO2 emissions.
This failure to forge a treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto protocol, which was rejected by the US and
which placed no obligations on big developing countries such as China, was hugely disappointing to
many and took much of the wind out of the sails of the campaign to reduce emissions.
Climate sceptics have effectively exploited the opportunities provided by the recession and the disappointing
Copenhagen summit to push their case, arguing that the last thing people need is expensive and unnecessary
renewable energy pushing up their utility bills.
According to a recent survey from the UK Energy Research Centre, they have been effective. The
proportion of people living in Britain who do not believe in climate change has more than quadrupled
since 2005 - from 4 per cent to 19 per cent.