The origins and operation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and some aspects of the greenhouse gas theory of global warming are examined. It is concluded that while it is extremely unlikely that any accurate prediction can be made now of the climate a century hence, and there is doubt that emissions of CO2 from man's activities are a major causative factor in global warming, government initiatives based on acceptance of the theory provide the spur for the steel industry to seek process routes with CO2 emissions much lower than they are today.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
HoughtonJ. T.: ‘Climate change. The IPCC scientific assessment’; 1990, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
2.
HoughtonJ. T.et al.: ‘Climate change 1992. The supplementary report to the IPCC scientific assessment’;1992, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
3.
HoughtonJ. T.et al.: ‘Climate change 2001. The scientific basis-contribution of Working Group 1 to the third assessment report of the IPCC’;2001, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
4.
‘Our energy future – creating a low carbon economy’, DTI Energy White Paper, Cm 5761, Department of Trade and Industry, London, February2003.
5.
EmsleyJ.: ‘The global warming debate. The report of the European Science and Environment Forum’;March1996, London, Bourne Press.
6.
BateR.: ‘Global warming: the continuing debate’; 1998, Cambridge, European Science and Environment Forum.
7.
‘Climate science and policy: making the connection’; 2001, Washington, DC, The GeorgeC Marshall Institute.
BöttcherF.: ‘Climate change: forcing a treaty’; in ‘The global warming debate. The report of the European Science and Environment Forum’, (ed. EmsleyJ.), 267–284; March1996, London, Bourne Press.
13.
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change: ‘The Kyoto Protocol to the Convention on Climate Change’, UNEP/IUC/99/ 10.
14.
SingerS. F.: ‘A preliminary critique of the IPCC second assessment of climate change’; in ‘The global warming debate. The report of the European Science and Environment Forum’, (ed. EmsleyJ.), 155; March1996, London, Bourne Press.
15.
BarrettJ.: ‘Do CO2 emissions cause a global threat?’; in ‘The global warming debate. The report of the European Science and Environment Forum’, (ed. EmsleyJ.), 60–70; March1996, London, Bourne Press.
MichaelsP. J.KnappenbergerP. C.: ‘The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the science ‘‘consensus’’ of climate change’; in ‘The global warming debate. The report of the European Scientific and Environment Forum’, (ed. EmsleyJ.), 158; March1996, London, Bourne Press.
18.
JacobsenM. Z.: ‘Strong radiative heating due to mixing state of black carbon in atmospheric aerosols’; Nature, 2001, 409, 695–697.
19.
SvensmarkH.Friis-ChristensenE.: ‘Variation in cosmic ray flux and global cloud cover: a missing link in the solar-climate relationship’; J. Atmos. Solar-Terrestr. Phys., 1997, 59, 1225–1232.
20.
LindzenR. S.ChouM.-D.HooA. Y.: ‘Does the earth have an adaptive infrared iris?’; Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 2001, 82, 417–432.
21.
KarlenW.KuylenstiernaJ.: ‘Evidence from the Scandinavian tree line since the last ice age’; in ‘The global warming debate. The report of the European Science and Environment Forum’, (ed. EmsleyJ.), 192–203; March1996, London, Bourne Press.
22.
ButlerC. J.: ‘A two century comparison of sunspot cycle length and temperature change – the evidence from Northern Ireland’; in ‘The global warming debate. The report of the European Science and Environment Forum’, (ed. EmsleyJ.), 215–223; March1996, London, Bourne Press.
23.
Friis-ChristensenE.LassenK.: ‘A long term comparison of sunspot cycle length and temperature change from Zurich Observatory’; in ‘The global warming debate. The report of the European Science and Environment Forum’, (ed. EmsleyJ.), 224–232; March1996, London, Bourne Press.
24.
StubblesJ.: ‘Global warming – fact or fiction’;Iron Steelmaker, December2001, 98.
25.
HansenJ. R.LebedeffS.: ‘Global trends of measured surface temperature’, J. Geophys. Res., 1987, 92, 13345–13372.
FuQ.: ‘Contribution of stratospheric cooling to satellite-inferred tropospheric temperature trends’; Nature, 2004, 429, 55–58.
31.
CorbynP.: ‘Does CO2 respond to global temperature changes rather than cause them? – counter evidence to greenhouse assumptions from ice core data and volcanoes’; in ‘The global warming debate. The report of the European Science and Environment Forum’, (ed. EmsleyJ.), 71–77; March1996, London, Bourne Press.
32.
SegalstadT. V.: ‘Carbon cycle modelling and the residence time of natural and anthropogenic CO2: on the construction of the ‘‘Greenhouse Effect Global Warming’’ dogma’; in ‘Global warming: the continuing debate’, (ed. BateR.), 184; 1998, Cambridge, European Science and Environment Forum.
33.
AndelT. H. Van: ‘New views on an old planet: a history of global change’; 2nd edn; 1994, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
34.
GoklanyI.: ‘Global warming: from the frying pan into the fire’; in ‘Perilous precaution: the folly of disregarding science’, 28–69; 2002, Cambridge, European Science and Environment Forum.
BirdsallN.SteerA.: ‘Act now on global warming – but don’t cook the books’; Finance Dev., 1993, 30, 6.
37.
LomborgB.: ‘The skeptical environmentalist’, Part V, 258 et seq.; 2001, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
38.
Anon: ‘European steel industry and climate change legislation’;Steel Times Int. , April2002, 34–36.
39.
BiratJ.-P.: ‘The environment as the new driver for innovation and change in the steel industry’, Simposio de Siderurgia no Seculo XXI, Sao Paulo, Brazil, June2001.