Commenting on the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and the IPCC, Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven said:

"Gore is a worthy winner of the prize. Climate change is a huge threat to the peace and security of the world as huge population movements and conflicts over diminishing resources loom on the horizon. We know his campaigning has made an impact globally, but it’s in the United States where his work has made the most difference. He took on the powerful American climate-sceptic lobby, exposed them, largely sidelined them and managed to shift opinion. Now even his one-time opponent Bush doesn’t bother denying man-made global warming."

He continued:

"Recognition of the work of the IPCC is overdue. On a matter as important as climate change, where powerful interests are pushing for inaction, it is creditable science that will move policymakers, and that science has for many years been provided by the IPCC. Their reports are the bedrock on which the case for action has been made. These are critical years in the fight to slash CO2 emissions, and with the science of the IPCC being waved in their faces our leaders are finding it increasingly difficult to dither."

A 2003 Pentagon report warned that climate change posed a huge threat to global stability. Analysts stated: 'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life. Once again, warfare would define human life.'

See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2004/feb/
22/usnews.theobserver

On 17th April 2007, then UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett spoke to the UN Security Council, describing climate change as a 'security imperative'.

Greenpeace press office – 0207 865 8255.

New report is final piece in jigsaw, now world leaders must act.

As the last of three ground-breaking climate change reports by leading UN scientists was published in Bangkok, Greenpeace today demanded that world leaders finally wake up to the scale of the climate crisis and act immediately to slash emissions.

"The final piece of the jigsaw in now in place and our leaders have no more excuses," said Charlie Kronick, Greenpeace UK's senior climate campaigner.

"Action to cut greenhouse gas emissions is now the great calling of our time. This year the world’s leading scientists have told us it’s happening, we’re causing it and it's a huge threat to our species. Now they're saying we can act to prevent the worst impacts without breaking the bank, the technology already exists, but we have to start now. This report should be top of Gordon Brown’s summer reading list."

The report, "Mitigation of Climate Change", by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded there are severe risks entailed in delaying emission reductions and that the scale of the action to reduce emissions in the next two to three decades will determine how severe climate change will be.

The study states:

• The technology already exists for countries to tackle the issue through the greater use of renewable energy sources and improving overall energy efficiency.

• Even the aimed-for level of a 2 degree increase could mean up to two billion people facing water shortages by 2050 and could threaten extinction for 20 per cent to 30 per cent of the world's species.

• Stabilising greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid escalating temperatures could cost significantly less than the cost of inaction.

• Climate models have underestimated the level of emission reductions needed to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations, making the need to act more urgent.

• "Safety, weapons proliferation and waste remain as constraints" on nuclear power.

• An enormous contribution to mitigating climate change can be made by protecting the world's forests.

For more information, contact Greenpeace on 0207 865 8255.

Greenpeace statement on tomorrow's IPCC impacts, adaptation and vulnerability report

The second of four major reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 is expected to predict dire consequences for the planet if our greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. Commenting on the news, Greenpeace climate campaigner Jim Footner said:

"It's clearer than ever that millions are at risk from devastating climate change. The poorest people will be hardest hit, despite being least to blame. The UK has played a major role in causing the problem and we must play a leading role in solving it - but appallingly our CO2 emissions are rising.

It's time for solutions that match the scale of the threat. To avert disaster, the Government needs to stop sitting on its hands and start implementing the solutions that already exist - decentralised energy, renewable energy and energy efficiency."

For further information please contact the Greenpeace press office on 0207 865 8255 / 07801 212 972

The Bush Administration's favourite think tank has been offering scientists $10,000 to attack the UN's new climate change report.

Greenpeace has acquired a letter from the American Enterprise Institute, an ExxonMobil-funded lobbying outfit, offering the payments for articles that attack the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC's fourth assessment report is published today. It will underpin international negotiations on new emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which expires in 2012.

Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered by the AEI. It's not known if any scientists accepted the offer.

The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Vice-President Dick Cheney's wife Lynne is a senior figure at the Institute. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman the AEI.

The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere by the AEI's Kenneth Green, attacks the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".

Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said: "The AEI is more than just a think tank, it functions as the Bush administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the last throes of their campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the science; they lost on the moral case for action. All they've got left is a suitcase full of cash."

ExxonMobil is responsible for a fifteen year campaign of deception and denial on climate change. The world's biggest oil company, which yesterday posted the largest profits in global corporate history, funds front groups to distort the science of climate change.

Read the AEI letter in full here.

ENDS

The Bush Administration's favourite think tank has been offering scientists $10,000 to attack the UN's new climate change report.

Greenpeace has acquired a letter from the American Enterprise Institute, an ExxonMobil-funded lobbying outfit, offering the payments for articles that attack the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC's fourth assessment report is published today. It will underpin international negotiations on new emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which expires in 2012.

Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered by the AEI. It's not known if any scientists accepted the offer.

The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Vice-President Dick Cheney's wife Lynne is a senior figure at the Institute. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman the AEI.

The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere by the AEI's Kenneth Green, attacks the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".

Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said: "The AEI is more than just a think tank, it functions as the Bush administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the last throes of their campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the science; they lost on the moral case for action. All they've got left is a suitcase full of cash."

ExxonMobil is responsible for a fifteen year campaign of deception and denial on climate change. The world's biggest oil company, which yesterday posted the largest profits in global corporate history, funds front groups to distort the science of climate change.

Read the AEI letter in full here.

ENDS