Scientists, governments clash over warming report

By Jeff Mason

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Scientists clashed with government officials at a U.N. panel on climate change on Friday over how strongly global warming is affecting plants and animals and the degree to which humans are causing temperatures to rise.

More than 100 nations in the U.N. group agreed a final text after all-night talks that were punctuated by protests from researchers, who accused delegates of ignoring science and watering down a summary version of the report for policymakers.

Environmentalists say governments tried to weaken the report in order to avoid taking strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia were the main culprits at the meeting, delegates said.

"It looks like very blatant vested interests are trying to stop particular messages getting out," said Neil Adger from Britain's Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

"We give our best to provide the best scientific assessment, but when the wording of that is then changed ... we get very upset. It's three years' work."

He said delegates had also tried to weaken the link between greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans and the impacts of global warming worldwide.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) groups 2,500 scientists and is the top authority on climate change.

Cynthia Rosenzweig of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies submitted a letter of protest to the IPCC chairman after Chinese delegates insisted on cutting a reference to 'very high confidence' that climate change was already affecting natural systems on all continents and in some oceans, she said.