Re: “Mountains of Oman could hold the Holy Grail of climate change,” April 15.
This reporter makes two claims about potential global warming that are patently false. One claim is that “current estimates hold that the world will be six degrees Celsius hotter by 2100.”
In fact, in its 2013 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates likely warming by 2100 of only 1.7 degrees C (this is considerably lower than its 2007 prediction of 3.8 degrees C by 2100 and a far cry from the news report’s “current estimate” of six degrees). Meanwhile, actual global warming continues to be way under the IPCC model predictions and has almost flat-lined since 1998 (the so-called “pause” that many climate scientists continue to deny).
Adding to the misinformation, the article states: “In 2015, 196 nations signed the Paris climate accords, agreeing to curb greenhouse gas emissions to levels that would keep the rise in the Earth’s temperature to under 2 C.”
While it’s true that this agreement was signed, most climate scientists admit that, even if all nations did what they promised under the Paris agreement, warming would be affected by a fraction of a degree Celsius at best. The Paris agreement is window-dressing, not an effective policy — an effective policy would be economic suicide for any nation that tried it.
Paul MacRae
Victoria
