The United Nations scientific panel on climate change issued a terrifying new warning on Monday that continued emissions of greenhouse gases from power plants and vehicles will bring dire and irreversible changes by 2040, years earlier than previously forecast. The cost will be measured in trillions of dollars and in sweeping societal and environmental damage, including mass die-off of coral reefs and animal species, flooded coastlines, intensified droughts, food shortages, mass migrations and deeper poverty.
President Trump’s uninformed climate skeptic response? Who drew it? Trump asks of dire climate report, appearing to mistrust 91 scientific experts:
Who drew it? The president wanted to know.
Ninety-one leading scientists from 40 countries who together examined more than 6,000 scientific studies. Specialists such as Katharine Mach, who studies new approaches to climate assessment at Stanford University; Tor Arve Benjaminsen, a human geographer at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences; and Raman Sukumar, an ecologist at the Indian Institute of Science.
They are among the members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to make recommendations to world leaders. Their report, issued Monday, warns of environmental catastrophe as early as 2040 and advises that the worst can be staved off only if civilization is transformed more profoundly than at any point in recorded history.
President Trump, in comments to reporters Tuesday on the South Lawn, seemed unaware of the IPCC, as the body is known, and expressed doubts about its determinations. The remarks put him at odds with most world leaders, as well as with scientific fact — a familiar position for the brash former businessman who has long ridiculed climate concerns.
