[Global Change: 366] Re: "natural" global warming

To quote their website:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was jointly
established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 1988. The terms of
reference include: (i) to assess available scientific and
socio-economic information on climate change and its impacts and on the
options for mitigating climate change and adapting to it and (ii) to
provide, on request, scientific/ technological/socio-economic advice to
the Conference of the Parties (CoP) to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

And may I direct you to Q7 of the 2001 synthesis report:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/un/syreng/spm.pdf

Question 7
What is known about the potential for, and costs and benefits of, and
time frame for reducing greenhouse gas emissions?
What would be the economic and social costs and benefits and equity
implications of options for policies and measures, and the mechanisms
of the Kyoto Protocol, that might be considered to address climate
change regionally and globally?
What portfolios of options of research and development, investments,
and other policies might be considered that would be most effective to
enhance the development and deployment of technologies that address
climate change?
What kind of economic and other policy options might be considered to
remove existing and potential barriers and to stimulate private- and
public-sector technology transfer and deployment among countries, and
what effect might these have on projected emissions?
How does the timing of the options contained in the above affect
associated economic costs and benefits, and the atmospheric
concentrations of greenhouse gases over the next century and beyond?

This would, indeed, cover the area Lomborg is concerned with, and may
agree with or dispute their findings. I am not sure which is the case.
In either case, the IPCC is mandated to analyse and report on the
options available to policymakers for mitigation and adaptation. The
socio-economic portion of that mandate makes it subject to peer review
by economists (even deluded ones who don't understand how the
environmental costs are measured like Lomborg).


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