Discussing Global Warming in the Security Council: Premature and a Distraction from More Pressing Crises...part 2

The Uncertainty Surrounding Catastrophic Global Warming

Global warming is a legitimate environmental concern, but does it really rise to the level of a security crisis? British policy on climate change subscribes to the European Union position of accepting and pursuing policies based upon worst-case scenarios of global warming.

Substantive political debate on global warming in the U.K. is minimal, and Prime Minister Tony Blair, Chancellor of the Treasury Gordon Brown, and Conservative Party Leader David Cameron are competing to out-do one another with their green credentials and proposals to tax, cap, or otherwise regulate greenhouse gases.

Most leading British scientists, institutions, and policy advisers support extensive, binding international regulatory initiatives on climate change. Specifically, the U.K. has ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the multilateral treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Sir David King, Chief Scientific Adviser to the U.K. Government, argues that without immediate action to address global warming, particularly by the U.S., millions of people around the world will fall victim to extensive flooding, drought, hunger, and debilitating diseases such as malaria. King has argued that global warming is a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism. Indeed, King believes that "climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today."

Such certainty is not supported by the evidence. Contrary to the impression given in press coverage, considerable scientific uncertainties and debate exist.

This is particularly true regarding the more alarming predictions of harm which are invoked to justify the unusual step of the Security Council addressing an issue more appropriately within the purview of the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) and other bodies.