(BRUSSELS) — An authoritative international global warming conference, already past its deadline for finishing a comprehensive report, lapsed into an unprecedented showdown between scientists and diplomats over authors' concerns that governments were watering down their warnings. Last-minute negotiations over language continued behind closed doors Friday, less than two hours before the scheduled release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in Brussels.
A dramatic dispute between the scientific authors of the report and its diplomatic editors erupted over a paragraph in the 21-page summary regarding how much confidence the scientists have in their findings. The report concerns the effects global warming is already having and will have on life on Earth. The disputed paragraph centers on what has already happened.
The paragraph originally said scientists had "very high confidence" — which means more than 90 percent chance of accuracy — in the statement that many natural systems around the globe "are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases."
After days of intensive small group negotiations over this section, delegates from China and Saudi Arabia on Friday insisted that the confidence be reduced to "high confidence" which means more than 80 percent accuracy. Three top scientists-authors formally objected to the change by the diplomats, including American scientist David Karoly of the University of Oklahoma. The scientists said it was an unprecedented weakening of the scientific confidence that was not raised when the report was circulated the past several months.
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http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1607539,00.html