China`s top science experts reject global warming and carbon scares

CHINA`s highest authority on climate change, the Chinese Academy of Science, has dismissed conventional wisdom on dangers posed by global warming as well as the harm supposedly done by carbon emissions, reports Hong Kong`s South China Morning Post.

"We are not experiencing the most dramatic climate change in recent history," said Liu Yu, the academy`s Institute of Earth Environment deputy director. "In northern China, the warmest period occurred from 401-413 AD, which had an annual mean temperature 0.16 degrees Celsius higher than today`s."


Global air, sea and land transport sectors have been faced with huge expenses to meet rising regulatory compliance costs, some of which are set in ways to drive smaller operators out of business.


The timing of China`s statement, based on a study of Tibetan tree rings, is also significant because of the current international climate change talks in Durban, South Africa and China`s opposition to carbon taxes imposed by the European Union on aircraft flying in and out of EU territory.


Continuing, Prof Liu said: "Popular belief is that industrialisation has led to the fastest rate of warming witnessed by humans, that we are at the warmest time of the modern era and that we are causing global warming by emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. None of that fits the records in tree rings.


"The climate change debate has more political significance than scientific. Diplomats can sit at negotiating tables talking about carbon caps while scientists have not reached an agreement on the role of carbon dioxide in global warming," he said.


"Political decisions must be based on sound scientific foundation, or they will be useless, if not dangerous," he told the SCMP in an extended interview.


Prof Liu has studied untouched forests dating back thousands of years along the remote Tibetan Plateau to assess current weather patterns and said that tree rings are key to understanding and predicting climate change.


For more than a decade, he has run simulations on computers to determine annual temperatures in the region over the past 2,485 years. Prof Liu said the sun, and not man-made factors. cause climate changes. "We believe that the sun and atmospheric circulations play a vital, if not decisive, role," he said.