At two separate meetings in Brussels last week, the same startling message was given. It is that, all the forecasts made by different scientists and establishments around the world over the past ten years, optimistic ones, median ones, pessimistic ones, about how Global Warming may work out, are all proving to be wrong. What is actually happening is proving to be worse than the most pessimistic forecast.

Reg and Bill Newton Dunn

The EU’s negotiator at the world talks said that this alarming fact is causing all the negotiators’ minds to be concentrated on achieving a worldwide agreement at the summit in Copenhagen one year from now.

What is happening ?

The pumping of CO2 and other gases into the atmosphere has actually accelerated since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol. The oceans are becoming acidic, measured by their “ph”, and thus less able to continue absorbing the CO2. The northern ice-caps and mountain glaciers are melting : when the glaciers in the Himalayas have gone, the seven major rivers which they feed and which supply water to two billion people, will be affected. The Jet Stream (the belt of fast-moving air 36,000ft above the earth which controls the movements of bad-weather systems) has moved several hundred miles to the south. Why ? Scientists believe there is a link to La Niña and to the warming of the Atlantic, one of the effects of climate change.