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Published online 2 April 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.728

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Climate challenge underestimated?

Technology will not automatically come to our aid, experts warn.

Claims that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has seriously underestimated the challenge and costs of stabilizing greenhouse-gas emissions in the 21st century are fuelling controversy among climate and energy researchers.

Climate policy expert Roger Pielke Jr, climatologist Tom Wigley, and economist Christopher Green lay out in a commentary article published in Nature1 today why they think that the emission scenarios the IPCC produced nearly a decade ago, which are still widely used, are overly optimistic.

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  • Nature has a number of news stories on this subject, and we'd like to keep all the comments in one place. So to comment, please visit 'Are the IPCC scenarios 'unachievable'?', linked to above, and found at http://www.nature.com/uidfinder/10.1038/452508a - thanks!

    • 02 Apr, 2008
    • Posted by: N Jones