Global warming controllable at affordable cost: IPCC

Bangkok, May 4 (UNI) Experts and representatives of more than 100 countries agreed here today after five days of deliberations that disastrous changes in the earth's climate threatening human existence can be prevented with existing technologies at affordable cost.

Unveiling the final and most crucial of its three reports this year, the United Nation's 19-year-old Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), currently chaired by India's R K Pachauri, outlined a comprehensive action plan to cut back emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) from human activities.

Although the required GHG reductions over the next quarter of a century are estimated to result in an about three per cent decrease of the global GDP, ''this should be compared to projections that the global economy will likely expand dramatically during this period,'' says the IPCC report.

Overall, the cost of reducing and stabilizing GHG emissions ''tends to be comparable to, or lower than, costs of inaction'', observe the authors of the report.

The report was finalised after intense discussions that stretched overnight on the penultimate day.

Two earlier IPCC reports this year confirmed that global warming was increasing at an alarming pace, affecting the global climate and ecology which has made hundreds of millions of people vulnerable to coastal indundation and reduced water supplies.

The three reports are expected to influence deliberations on climate policy during next month's G 8 summit of the world's richest nations.

The expert recommendations in the reports reflect global consensus and will also play a key role in the next round of international political negotiations to cut greenhouse gas emissions, scheduled for December this year.

Authored by 168 experts, some 40 per cent of them from developing and transition countries, and reviewed by hundreds of other experts, the IPCC report released today outlines action plans for reducing GHG emissions from power generation, industry, agriculture, forests, buildings, transport and consumer wastes.

The six greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride, PFCs and HFCs.

''Some of the cheapest options for reducing (greenhouse) emissions involve electricity savings in buildings, fuel savings in vehicles and increased soil carbon content in agriculture. Because energy supply is the largest contributor to emissions, policies to promote a shift to less carbon-intensive energy sources are particularly effective,'' the report notes.

''The greatest potential for reducing industrial emissions is located in the energy-intensive steel, cement, and pulp and paper industries and in the control of non-CO2 gases such as HFC-23 from the manufacturing of HCFC-22, PFCs from aluminium smelting and semiconductor processing, sulphur hexafluoride from use in electrical switchgear and magnesium processing, and methane and nitrous oxide from the chemical and food industries.'' ''While existing technologies can significantly reduce industrial GHG emissions, new and lower cost technologies will be needed to meet long-term emission objectives,'' it added.

UNI