IPCC climate change report 'played down positive impacts'

The IPCC's key global assessment of climate change failed to give sufficient weight to the positive impacts of global warming, according to a study that nevertheless backed its main conclusions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 report also contained a number of previously unnoticed minor errors, according to the review. However, the errors, and a lack of transparency as to where the conclusions had come from, were not found to have undermined the findings that the negative impacts of climate change posed ''substantial risks'' to most parts of the world.

The Dutch government commissioned an evaluation of the IPCC report after it emerged the study claimed 55% of the country was below sea level - an inaccurate figure which had been supplied by the Dutch environmental assessment agency. The Dutch study raised concerns that the report summary highlighted more of the negative effects of climate change than the positive - but the IPCC authors today said they focused on the greatest impacts to human well being and the environment when preparing the conclusions for governments. The authors also dispute claims that their conclusions for the regional impacts of global warming contained a minor ''inaccuracy'' about the number of people in Africa who will be more at risk of a lack of water - a suggestion the report's authors dispute.

A series of other minor mistakes identified in the 500 page document were found to be mostly references or typographical errors. Prof Martin Parry, co-chairman of one of the main areas of the IPCC's assessment, said the new research showed the conclusions on regional impacts of climate change in the report were ''safe, sound and reliable.'' But he said that the science of climate change was now ''a battlefield'' because some people saw the costs of taking action to tackle the problem of global warming as a threat. And he admitted another high profile mistake in the report which has prompted criticism of the IPCC - that the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 - had done ''huge damage'' and it would take a long time ''for the wounds to heal'' from it. He said his fellow authors of the fourth assessment study published in 2007 were dismayed such a mistake could have been included in the report.

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