Al Gore’s movie meets its match in Stockholm

Several presentations contributed to a strong impression that the global carbon cycle is inadequately understood to determine whether all the significant sources, sinks and flows of greenhouse gases are known with the accuracy needed to assess human causation. For example, in 2006 alone a new source - trees - and a new sink - desert sand grains (as described at the KTH meeting for the first time by Dr Peter Stakalos) - have been identified for methane. Though neither of these mechanisms is particularly large, their discovery reinforces the important general principle that we have many things yet to learn about climate processes.

Because Scandinavian countries have a particular interest in the climate events that are affecting the nearby Arctic polar region, the Stockholm conference received a detailed briefing on the recent warming that has occurred there. This was provided by Professor Erland Kallen, director of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, who noted that the late 20th century Arctic warming does not exceed earlier natural warmings in magnitude, such as the one that peaked in the 1930s. Therefore, and despite all the public alarmism that surrounds it, the recent warming may have an entirely natural cause.

What overall conclusions, then, can be drawn from the Stockholm meeting?

From the papers presented, as indeed from Mr Gore’s film, it is clear that the alarmist case for dangerous global warming rests on circumstantial evidence, unsubstantiated computer models and green political activism. It is therefore premature to conclude, as member countries of the EEC and other Kyoto signatories have, that modern industrial carbon dioxide emissions pose a grave hazard to the planet. It is entirely likely instead that any mild warming that may be produced by the emissions will serve as a useful counterbalance to the future climatic coolings that are bound to develop. In which regard, scientists from the Russian Academy of Science have recently issued a warning that they foresee just such a cooling over the next two decades.

But there is also an important political conclusion to be drawn from the Stockholm climate meeting. It is that carbon taxes and other measures based upon the supposition that dangerous human-caused global warming is underway are quite unable to be justified from the scientific evidence presently to hand. And this conclusion stands even should the precautionary principle be invoked, because our knowledge of natural climate change tells us that future climatic cooling remains at least as strong a hazard as was the late 20th century phase of warming.

The Swedish public might ponder why it was that such an important conference as “Scientific Controversies in Climate Variability” was allowed to pass unremarked by a local media which at the same time gave prominence to the movie An Inconvenient Truth, and that during the run up to what proved to be an historic election.

In contrast, Australians and Americans have every reason to be thankful that their governments - in eschewing the Kyoto accord and encouraging the development of the Asia-Pacific Climate agreement - have put the interests of their citizens ahead of Mr Gore’s speculative do-goodery towards expensive and ineffectual climate mitigation measures.