U.N. deflects climate-change criticism

ANKARA, Turkey, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- Scientific evidence from the environmental community suggests global warming trends are the result of human activity, a U.N. official said in Ankara.

Achim Steiner, the head of the U.N. Environment Program, deflected criticism of a U.N.-backed panel that admitted to errors in its reporting on the rate of climate change.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in January it made errors in reports saying the Himalayan glaciers could melt away by 2035, which the U.N. body used in its 2007 data on the impacts of climate change.

Steiner wrote in Turkey's leading English-language daily Today's Zaman that while critiques of the reporting were welcome, the evidence suggested the overall assumptions on climate change were accurate.

"The overwhelming evidence now indicates that greenhouse-gas emissions need to peak within the next decade if we are to have any reasonable chance of keeping the global rise in temperature down to manageable levels," he wrote.

Steiner maintained that switching from polluting fossil fuels to cleaner and renewable energy alternatives is imperative as the global population rises from 6 billion to 9 billion within 50 years.

"What is needed is an urgent international response to the multiple challenges of energy security, air pollution, natural-resource management, and climate change," he concluded.