10.21.2008 9:39 AM

Global Warming: Faster, Stronger, Sooner

WWF Report: Climate Change Accelerating Beyond U.N. Predictions

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Photo: NASA

By Dan Shapley

Even the worst-case scenarios described by climate scientists are proving, in many cases, too timid.

Global warming is happening faster than anticipated.

Those are the conclusions of a new WWF analysis of scientific reports to appear in peer-reviewed journals since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made its last assessment in 2007.

The environmental group calls its report, “Climate change: faster, stronger, sooner."

"Yikes" would also have been suitable.

The group calls for a more ambitious worldwide response than has been so-far proposed -- though its focus is on spurring action in the European Union. Of course, even getting the world's major polluters to agree to binding targets for reducing carbon emissions has so far proved an elusive goal, complicated by competing national interests, economic concerns and petro-dictatorship politics.

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