Be Sure to Read the Fine Print
The Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of Working Group III (Mitigation), released on May 4, is available on the IPCC website, www.ipcc.ch. In an effort to assist the public's evaluation of the strong claims made in the PM and the subsequent use of those claims by the media and public policymakers, this review will evaluate WG III's conclusions.
The first of WG III's key findings concerns mitigation potential, the mount of greenhouse gas emission control that can be achieved at a given price and date. The finding reads:
Both bottom-up and top-down studies indicate that there is substantial economic potential for the mitigation of global GHG emissions over the coming decades, that could offset the projected growth of global emissions or reduce emissions below current levels (high agreement, much evidence)." While this conclusion seems straightforward, and has been presented in the media that way, both the definition of the terms used and the assumptions made in deriving the numerical estimates are anything ut straightforward. The Marshall Institute has examined the definitions of terms and assumptions underlying this conclusion and finds it unsupportable for the following reasons:
See full Article, in pdf format.
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