IPCC reinforces scientific message, while approving outline of its next Assessment Report

Barcelona, 4 November 2009 – “The time has come for us to return to the science of Climate Change” said Mr Rajendra K. Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in a video address to the delegates presented yesterday, 3 November 2009, in Barcelona, where the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is meeting for a last round of talks before Copenhagen – “What we need to do now is to focus on our responsibility, not only towards ourselves in a very narrow and myopic context, but to the world as a whole because it is abundantly clear that mitigation of greenhouse gases is not at all an expensive proposition and if anything it is probably a negative cost opportunity. It should be science that determines your positions and it should be science that should tell you that for the benefit of this planet and all the species who live on it, the findings of the Fourth Assessment are totally valid and must be kept in focus if we want to move towards a good agreement in Copenhagen”.

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