"UN issues bleakest warning on climate"

Billions of people in Asia will be at risk of flooding as the effects of climate change take hold in the next few decades, the world's leading climate scientists said on Friday.

The poor will be worst hit, as climate change is expected to bring some benefits to richer countries such as north America and northern Europe in the form of longer crop growing seasons, but countries that are already hot will suffer. Diseases borne by mosquitoes, such as malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever will also greatly extend their range, overburdening already stretched health services in poor parts of the world.

But the residents of the southern coastal states of the US will also be at much greater risk of hurricanes and tropical storms.

The scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change delivered their verdict in Brussels after a four-day meeting that stretched to 10am on Friday. They stayed up all night because of disagreements over the exact wording of their summary, which provides a guide to the second section of the IPCC report.

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, said disagreements had been resolved. All of the countries involved had to agree the wording before it could be published.

The report is the biggest and most authoritative ever produced on climate change and will form the basis of international policy on the issue for years to come, including the effort to extend the UN's Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.

The Kyoto Protocol binds 35 rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions but has been undercut by a 2001 pullout by the United States, the top emitting nation. US President George W. Bush says Kyoto would cost US jobs and wrongly excludes developing nations such as China.

Martin Parry, co-chair of the IPCC and a scientist from the UK's Met Office, said governments should take careful note of the report, which details the dramatic effects climate change is likely to have, and is already having.

Spring is occurring earlier all around the world, and glaciers are melting. The polar ice caps are also melting, sea levels are gradually rising, and wildlife are migrating.

Mr Pachauri said one of the most important aspects of the report was the "equity dimension" – that poor countries, which are least able to cope with climate change and which are least responsible for past emissions, are likely to be most affected by it....

He (Gary Yohe, one of the report's lead authors) said China, Russia and Saudi Arabia had raised most objections during the night to a 21-page summary which makes clear that the poor will suffer most. Other participants also said the United States had toned down some passages.

Some scientists objected, for instance, after China tried to eliminate a note saying that there was "very high confidence" that climate change was already affecting "many natural systems, on all continents and in some oceans".

China, the second largest source of greenhouse gases after the United States and ahead of Russia, wanted no mention of the level of confidence....

Friday's report is the second by the IPCC this year. In February, the first said it was more than 90 percent probable that mankind was to blame for most global warming since 1950.

Update:

Several scientists objected to the editing of the final draft by government negotiators, the Associated Press reported, but in the end agreed to compromises. However, some scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change vowed never to take part in the process again, the AP reported....

The climax of five days of negotiations was reached when the delegates removed parts of key charts highlighting devastating effects of climate change that kick in with every rise of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, and in a tussle over the level of confidence attached to key statements.

The charts have been called a "highway to extinction" because they show that with every degree of warming, the condition of much of the world worsens — with starvation, floods and the disappearance of species...