Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

OE, the BBC article was citing opinion of some pretty credentialed scientists, but you zero on on reference to the IPCC. An open mind considers all the information in an article I think instead of just a prejudicial reference or phrase, and an open mind is not going to assert absolutes until it has at least considered all sides of an issue. I don't expect you to believe it, but I have read lots and lots of stuff arguing for global warming. I know what the arguments are. I've seen them written, talked about, and presented many many times. The difference between you and me seems to be that I am also willing to look at the converse arguments and I find them equally convincing.

But okay, to humor you, I ran a very quick search and the following are the first things that came up.

http://www.accesstoenergy.com/view/atearchive/s76a2026.htm

Don't know the origin (or politics) of this site, but they have a lot of interesting stuff:
http://www.john-daly.com/press/press-02a.htm#surface

If it turns out OE's scientists are right, here is one possible remedy::
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-02/du-goo020904.php

The UK scientists chime in
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1833902.stm

And of course there is the SEPP site that Kyoto proponents either dismiss or demonize:
http://www.sepp.org/abtsepp.html
http://www.sepp.org/misuse/envirltr.html

Interesting analysis of hurricanes and global warming
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA533HurricanesGlobalWarming.html

Credentials of some advocating the global warming theory
http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/editorial/97/10/24/thomas.html

Note scientific opinion cited in this article
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2003/09-08-2003/vo19no18_warming.htm

Okay. Something to start with.

Now, could you give me your definition of "unbiased" again, Foxy?

It appears, Old Europe, that you will do anything and post anything to avoid addressing my points that were made and taken from the most prestigious National Academy of Sciences Report. If you are, for some strange reason, unable to scroll back to find my complete listing of the reasons why "global warming" is probably a non-issue, I would be glad to replicate them for your perusal.

In the meantime, just to whet your appetite, I will AGAIN post a critical point from the National Academy of Sciences Report. If you are serious about this discussion, you will address it or., at least, attempt to address it.

QUOTE

"The nature and magnitude of these hydrological feedbacks give rise to the LARGEST SOURCE OF UNCERTAINTY about climate sensitivity...."

As I already mentioned, All the computer models ASSUME that the water-vapor feedbacks produce a large gain in global warming, IF THAT ASSUMPTION IS UNTRUE, THEN EVERY MODEL EXAGGERATES WARMING AT THE LOWEST LEVELS OF THE ATMOSPHERE. Richard Lindzen, one of the Scientists who produced the NAS Report indicates that both clouds and water vapor--each more important in the greenhouse effect than co2-ARE SIMPLY NOT WELL UNDERSTOOD BY CLIMATOLOGISTS.


I do not type in caps to shout--I just do not want you to miss what I think are critical points to which, unfortunately, you have not responded.

OE, I have no problem with bias. One can be 100% biased and still be 100% objective. Once an opinion is held, bias exists. You're biased. I'm biased. And that's okay. I can admire an Andrew Sullivan or William Raspberry or Michael Kinsley who are admitted and unashamed liberals but are honestly inerested in truth and accuracy and report honestly whether or not the information supports the 'party ideology'. I frequently disagree with them, but admire them and look to them and others like them to help me not overlook the obvious. I have no respect for those whose only purpose for existence seems to be to bring down the 'other side'.

I do have problems with engineered science to support a particular point of view, I have a problem with 'me too' science claimed by those who just want to be included in their peer group, and I have a problem with junk science that can be disputed by any bright highschool student. Yes we have to question those who have a personal interest in 'research' producing a particular conclusion, so I want to see other evidence in addition to that produced by such interested parties, but their conclusions cannot be automatically be dismissed because they have a vested interest.

Right now, I think those scientists who say 'there is insufficient evidence to prove....." and "I don't know....." on the issue of global warming are presenting the most compelling case, and I support my President in going with that group.

So what's your point?

Mortkat, I know you're having a terribly difficult time living with the angst produced by hydrological uncertainty, which seems to be your current hobbyhorse. And I've just got to ask you, ain't science wonderful? Along comes new research to reduce your chronic uncertainty.

And guess which hotly-debated (despite the overwhelming scientific consensus) long-term climate trend it supports?

Let's start with a couple summary paragraphs from the American Geophysical Union:

WASHINGTON -- A new report indicates that the vast majority of the rapid temperature increase recently observed in Europe is likely due to an unexpected greenhouse gas: water vapor. Elevated surface temperatures due to other greenhouse gases have enhanced water evaporation and contributed to a cycle that stimulates further surface temperature increases, according to a report in Geophysical Research Letters. The research could help to answer a long-debated Earth science question about whether the water cycle could strongly enhance greenhouse warming.

The strong increase of longwave radiation is shown in the study to be due to increasing cloudiness, rising temperature, rising water vapor, and above all to long-lived manmade greenhouse gases. The scientists' radiation measurements in the Alps show that the various inputs, or forcings, can be separated and that manmade greenhouse forcing is measurable at Earth's surface. Above all, their measurements demonstrate strong water vapor
feedback that rapidly warms Central and Northeastern Europe, where sufficient water is available from plants and the surface, known as evapotranspiration.

http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/prrl/prrl0538.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4419880.stm


I call your attention to this sentence:
The strong increase of longwave radiation is shown in the study to be due to increasing cloudiness, rising temperature, rising water vapor, and above all to long-lived manmade greenhouse gases.


And for those too lazy to click, the BBC story:


Water vapour rather than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the main reason why Europe's climate is warming, according to a new study.

The scientists say that rising temperatures caused by greenhouse gases are increasing humidity, which in turn amplifies the temperature rise.

This is potentially a positive feedback mechanism which could increase the impact of greenhouse gases such as CO2.

The research is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The scientists involved have used research networks and weather stations across Europe to measure temperature, humidity and longwave radiation, which plays a key role in the greenhouse effect.

Not from the Sun

"We observed that between 1995 and 2002, the amount of longwave radiation coming downwards to the Earth in Europe increased significantly, whereas solar radiation did not," said study leader Rolf Philipona, from the World Radiation Center in Davos, Switzerland.




Animated guide: Climate change
Longwave radiation comes from molecules of gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapour which have absorbed solar radiation after it has hit the Earth's surface and been reflected back up through the atmosphere.

"We wondered if this effect was simply because of a temperature increase at the surface - you would just get more radiation going up, and so more coming back down," Dr Philipona told the BBC News website.

"But we allowed for this, and for the impact of extra clouds, but still we found an increase."

The researchers calculated that this increase is partly down to higher concentrations of the gases such as carbon dioxide which are often described as causing the "man-made greenhouse effect"; but increased water vapour appears to have a larger effect, accounting for about 70% of the observed temperature rise.

Not all regions of Europe are affected equally.

Between 1995 and 2002, Eastern states appear to have warmed by a rate equivalent to about 2C per decade - considerably faster than their western counterparts.

According to the new study, that may well be down to humidity differences; broadly speaking, humidity has risen fast in the east but not in the west, where evaporation may be limited by the dryness of the Iberian peninsula.

Undervalued water


The ASRB unit at Gornergrat in the Alps measures longwave radiation
Although rising concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides and other gases are almost certainly driving the global rise in temperature observed in recent decades, the natural greenhouse effect - without which the world would be considerably colder - is largely down to atmospheric water vapour.

Because human activities change its concentrations very little, it is generally not mentioned in discussions of modern-day greenhouse warming.

But climate scientists have been aware for decades that mechanisms involving water vapour could amplify temperature increases, and have attempted to model these effects in computer simulations.

Researchers sceptical about projections of human-induced climate change base their criticism partly on what they see as flawed simulations of water vapour and clouds.

So will this discovery force a re-evaluation of climate models? William Ingram, from the UK's Meteorological Office and Oxford University, believes not.

"This careful study confirms that this aspect of the climate system is behaving broadly as expected," he told the BBC News website.

"It is therefore consistent with projections by the scientific consensus."

Local hotspots




Arctic ice disappearing fast
Heat makes plants warm planet
But Rolf Philipona believes there might be regional implications which had not been appreciated before.

"There will be some parts of the world affected by strong feedback and others not - perhaps even a drying in some places," he said.

"We would see that water vapour would go up where there is enough water on the ground."

An increased concentration of water vapour is just one of the feedback mechanisms which could change or amplify the progress of human-induced global warming.

Others include:

melting of ice, leading to a greater absorption of sunlight
the conversion of forests from net absorbers of carbon dioxide to net producers
the release of trapped methane from permafrost.
Recent studies indicate that the first two of these mechanisms may already be in train.

I am not sure I aghree with the theory of global warming or not,but I notice nobody has answered my questions.

So,I will ask again...

1. Since we dont have the ability to control or predict the weather,how can we be controling the climate?

2.If the earth is warming,then how come the mean temperature on earth is LOWER now then it was in 1998?

3.If people can tell the "average mean temp" on earth,tell me how.
Are there thermometers covering every mile of the earth?

4.How does anyone know what the temp was 300 years ago?
Can anyone say with CERTAINTY what the temp in the Gobi desert was in 1600?

5.Assuming "cause and effect",then tell me what caused the last ice age?
I know the earth cooled,but tell me why?

6.IF man is causing global warming,then why arent the urban areas reading higher temps then the rural areas?
Shouldnt there be a noticeable difference in temps?

7.Using the theory of cause and effect,then I would appreciate an answer to this question...

If X caused global warming (effect),and
Global warming (cause) was the reason the last ice age ended (effect),then tell me...what is X?

It couldnt be man,because there were very few people on the planet then.

And lastly,

If the cause of global warming is man and industry,are you willing to allow some parts of the world,like Africa and parts of Asia,to remain in poverty and to allow those people to starve because they cannot modernize?
Are you willing to allow the third world countries to continue in poverty and squalor,to stop global warming?

Ok, mystery:
1/ Weather and climate are not the same. Weather is day-to-day, climate is longterm trends. Change the climate and weather changes too. They predict the weather everyday--look at the 11:00 news. They're not totally accurate, but they're pretty good. We are not "controlling" the climate--we're doing something that's causing major changes in it. That is hardly "control". We do that by burning fossil fuels which represent millions of years of carbon sequestration, over the span of a few decades. The feedback mechanisms that have kept CO2 in balance are clearly not sufficient to cope with that CO2 release. CO@ in the atmosphere has gone from an average of 280ppm over the last ten thousand years, to about 370-380 ppm today, rising over the last century. It's going up, it's not coming down.

2. Again, you're confusing weather and climate. There are hot years and cold years, dry years and wet years. I'm not sure 1998 was hotter than now. I can tell you the long-term trend is up. They said seven of the ten hottest years on record occurred after 1990. They said that several years ago. I also believe I read that 04 and 05, since that statement, were record-breakers as well. Again, the trend is UP, not DOWN, and that hasn't changed. Some years will always be hotter, or cooler, or drier or wetter than others. That's weather.

3. Most of the tem. reading these days is weather balloons or satellite based. Do some research on remote sensing.

4. As someone above said, there are a number of ways to get at ave. mean temps of the past: ice cores, coral formation, dendrochronolgy, for example. No one pretends they are as precise as a measurement we can do of the temperature of today, Tuesday Nov. 16, but we can get a good idea.

5. Several theories, each with some evidence. None proved. Why do you think this is particularly relevant. One thing is definite; CO2
in the atmosphere, which causes the earth to retain heat (the "greenhouse effect", which NOBODY disputes exists), was much lower than the 280ppm average during the last ice age. And CO2 is much higher than 280 ppm now. Perhaps you can draw a conclusion from that.

6. Mortkat has run on at some length about the heat island effect around many major cities. They are in fact hotter. The climate models compensate for that. And global warming is due (in significant and somewhat simplified degree) to carbon dioxide IN THE ATMOSPHERE. We produce it and it goes up and diffuses with everything else already there. It doesn't stay in one place, so the effect is general, not just above your head or my head or a city's head.

7. see 5.

Last point: Mortkat seems to be. The Bush camp seems to be. The people who produced Kyoto weren't. The point of Kyoto was: global warming will affect everybody on the planet and our descendants for at least several generations to come:CO2 stays in the atmosphere for a century or so, even if we were to stop producing anymore today (I believe you were the one who said Mt. Pinatubo produced more pollutants than anything man had ever done--most of the products of volcanic eruption--thesulfates and the aerosols, the particulate matter, settle out or are precipitated out or react, in two to threeyears and then are gone. CO2 last longer than your lifetime).

Oops, back to Kyoto after that digression. They said we all have to do something. The industrial nations have produced the vast majority of anthropogenic CO2, and used a disprooportionate share of the world's resources to do it. The developing world hasn't had access to its share of resources. They now, not unreasonably, want a chance at their share of the pie. Since we pigged out, it is up to us to take the first steps to a.)start to solve the problem that affects us all and b.) let the developing world get a little better off. That is a political question, not a scientific one. Mortkat seems to believe the US is entitled to grab all it can. I think we've all got to share this finite world. Apparently you do too. So do the Kyoto Accords (which are, remember, just a first step--they don't stabilize or reduce CO2 emissions at this stage--they just slow its increase. Even if they initially get to the 1990 level, that's still a level that only lets CO2 concentrations increase.

I appreciate the answers.
At least you answered them in a way that is understandable.

I do have a problem with the Kyoto accords,for one big reason.
Countries like China and India,both countries with rapidly expanding industrial bases,are exempt from Kyoto.
That doesnt make sense to me.
Eitheer everyone is in it,or nobody is.
I dont see how it will do any good if 2 of the biggest polluters are exempt.

Username. I'm sure you are able to reference ALL of my points in my previous post on Global Warming. Old Europe did not do so. Neither did you-- I mean ALL OF THE POINTS INCLUDING THE MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD; THE REPORT OF THE NAS; THE REJECTION OF THE KYOTO ACCORD BY THE US CONGRESS IN 1997; THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SURFACE MEASUREMENTS OF 'WARMING' AND SATELLITE MEASUREMENTS; THE REPORT BY THE NATIONAL ACADEMY THAT CLIMATE MODELS GIVEN BY COMPUTERS ARE IMPERFECT; THE POSSIBLITY OF THE SUN BEING IN A PERIOD WHICH MAKES THE EARTH WARMER.

Your problem, User, is that you blithely ignore the arguments that don't fit your Procrustean parameters.

Now, to your post. I will. at least, unlike you, address your post.--All of it. You did not address all of mine.

Are you afraid to take it point by point?

You haven't addressed any of MY points yet, Massagatto. I have addressed a number of yours, including the MWP, Kyoto's rejection (a political point, not a scientific one), surface vs. satellite, and solar forcing. You ignored all of them.

Point One- Username references "Water Vapor Feedback is Rapidly Warming Europe-at the bottom of the link is this sentence.

"The research was supported by the framework of the National Center of Competence in Research on Climate--an initiative funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation"

STRIKE ONE- USERNAME.

I am very suspicious of any research coming from the self-serving minions of the IPCC. I will do research to compare the Swiss National Science Foundation with THE US' NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES WHICH I REFERENCED. I am sure that the NAS is far more reliable and, because of expertise, more reliable.

but, on to the blurb---

Water Vapor Feedback is Rapidly Warming Europe.

1. A lousy report- Aren't you ashamed of yourself presenting a Report which says-Rapidly Warming- and then GIVES NO FIGURES AS TO WHAT RAPIDLY WARMING MEANS!!!

2. quote from your link-

"A new report indicates that the vast majority of the rapid(?) temperature increase recently observed in Europe is likely due to an unexpected greenhouse gas: water vapor"

"Unexpected greenhouse gas"???????????

Don't they read in Switzerland?

quote from MY report( I am sure you did not read it) referencing the NAS Report.

Clouds are closely related to the MOST IMPORTANT NATURAL GREENHOUSE AGENT, WATER VAPOR.

The computer simulations that produce alarming levels of warming over the next century all ASSUME that water vapor will amplify the small bit of warming expected from an increase of carbon dioxide concentration in the air. ALL THE COMPUTER MODELS ASSUME THAT WATER VAPOR FEEDBACKS PRODUCE A LARGE GAIN IN GLOBAL WARMING. IF THAT ASSUMPTION IS UNTRUE, THEN EVERY MODEL EXAGGERATES WARMING AT THE LOWEST LEVELS OF THE ATMOSPHERE.

That is why, Username, the sentence I referenced is so important-the sentence from the NAS Report---THE NATURE AND MAGNITUDE OF THESE HYDROLOGICAL FEEDBAKCS GIVE RISE TO THE

L A R G E S T S O U R C E O F U N C E R T A I N T Y ABOUT CLIMATE SENSITIVITY.

Now, let us see if the rest of your post is presents a case as weak as your first link.

( I refer you to the outstanding movie starring Orson Welles-The Third Man- in which Welles states that all the Swiss have ever been able to do is to produce the Coocoo clock.

Massagatto--notice the date. Four days ago. Far more recent work than NAS or IPCC. My point was, research continues, and the uncertainty you keep citing has been greatly reduced by the most current research. You keep citing stuff that came out years ago. The models have improved enormously as computing power has increased (geometrically). The sensors have increased and improved enormously. The amount of research almost matches Moore's Law-doubling every 18 months. Do try to keep up to date.

And may I suggest that is a supremely silly quote. The Swiss, for example, produced a democratic government five hundred years before we did.

You quote the BBC summary of the research--intended for the general public, which seemed appropriate for you. That's why it doesn't have a lot of figures.

And, I might add, you seem to have a tendency to quote from the policy-makers' summaries of things like NAS reports, and make much of the "probably"s and "are very likely to" or "may cause", and miss the footnote on page 2 that explains those are meant as an attempt to make an approximation for the layperson of the statistical measures of reliability which all responsible scientific work dealing with these kinds of data calculate. Read those measures of reliability and you get a much more definite indication of what's going on, and it ain't the uncertainty you keep imputing to it from dealing with ordinary language rather than the numbers. (Not talking here about water vapor's effect. That's a different case).

I know Moore's law and I also know what I posted and you obviously did not read.

You did not mention( shy?) the ridiculous point in the Swiss Report that said Rapidly Warming which did not give any figures.

You are also equating what I am sure is a two bit concern in Switzerland with the Report of the NAS. If you can't refer to me as the name under which I am posting, I must regretfully assume that you are not capable of discussing things on an adult level but must descend to an adolescent level.

GROW UP!!

Now, your second reference is not at all persuasive.



It says that "Climate scientists have been aware for decades( I am glad that they upohold the NAS report in this matter) that mechanisms involving water vapor COULD( note could-could denotes POSSIBLITY NOT CERTAINTY) amplyfy temperature increases and have ATTEMPTED( it means to try-not necessarily to complete satisfactorily) to model these effects in computer simulations."( Again, you have not read my posts--the NAS ( not the bbc- the NAS) stated- "Climate models are imperfect, Their simulation skill is limited by UNCERTAINTIES in their forumulation( I know about Moore's Law but garbage in equals garbage out despite Moore's law) the limited size of their calculations, and the difficulty in INTERPRETING THEIR ANSWERS THAT EXHIBIT ALMOST AS MUCH COMPLEXITY AS IN NATURE.

Your link continues:

"Researchers SKEPTICAL about Human Climate change base their criticisms partly on what they see as flawed simulations of water vapor and clouds" ( At least, they acknowledge that there are Skeptics and Critics)

Now-Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT has worked out a stunning hypothesis with colleagues at NASA. Cirrus clouds may act as thermostats. As the earth warms, clouds adjust in their suface coverage, shedding more energy back to space., BUT ALL OF THE COMPUTER MODELS A S S U M E NO CHANGE IN CLOUD ACTIVITY FROM WARMING.

Is Lindzen correct? Possibly. Unless he can be shown to be incorrect, it means that there is again a great deal of uncertainty about so called global warming.


As I said in one of my posts( and this is not fromBBC but rather from NAS)
In the NAS Report, the words "uncertain" and "Uncertainty" appear 43 times.
It would do you some good, Username, to read Foxfyre's rational post about the fact that there is just too much "uncertainty" about "global warming" and its causes and future effects to dismantle economies in the West while China and India go on their way unfettered.
'
If there is a problem with "global warming" ( and it is not a certainty) the problem will not disappear since China and India do inhabit the same planet as does the West.

I really don't know who Mr. Philpona is. But I do know who Sallie Baliunas is. She is the Assistant Director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. I have not been made aware of any agency in Switzerland which can match the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for expertise.

Dr. Sallie Baliunas has been working on the sun's effect on the earth's climate for the last fifteen years.

Dr. Baliunas writes: "The extent of human impact on climate remains a highly complex scientific matter. The IPCC said( NOTE THE IPCC)
"Our ability to quantify the human influence on global climate is limited because the expected signal is still emerging from the noise of natural variability, and because there are UNCERTAiNTIES IN KEY FACTORS>"

You were saying about "Uncertainties"???

Here are some comments from the IPCC as reported by Dr. Baliunas-

"(The model results) cannot be considered as compelling evidence of a clear cause and effect link between anthropogenic forcing and changes in the earth surface temperature"

and from Dr. Lindzn


"Without knowing the dynamical heat fluxes, it is clear that one cannot even calculate the mean temperaure of the earth""

Dr. Baliunas adds:

"An important feature of the surface temperature record of the last 100 years is that the temperature rose SHARPLY by about 0.4C between 1910 and 1940. Most of the increases in greenhouse gases, however, occurred after 1940 and, therefore CANNOT be the cause of the 0.4 C warming that occurred earlier in the twentieth century, Most of the warming early in this century then, must have been due to natural causes of climatic change and these natural causes MUST BE UNDERSTOOD in order to make an accurate assessment of the effect upon climate of any human activities that may have been added to the natural changes. The overall warming trend( whose time scale of variability is >40 years) in the temperature record is the ONLY statistically significant component of variablity. No other component can be distinguished at the 95 percent confidence level from red noise, Because the signal is spatially ubiquitous, it is consistent with a global change in external forcing".


"ONE POSSIBLE NATURAL CAUSE OF CLIMATIC CHANGE IS VARIATION IN THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE SUN"


SOURCE FOR ABOVE QUOTES FROM DR. Baliunas


http://oldfrazer.lexi.net/publications/books.g_warming/solar. html


I am taking your post point by point.- Username.

You have not done so to my eight points,Username. Why not?

I'll be back.

Yes, yes, yes, the same two names keep reappearing in your posts: Sallie Baliunas and Richard Lindzen (altho again in this thread you have referred to him as Richard Lindzner, a rather blatant giveaway of past history)
, both of whom are rather notoriously in the pay of the fossil fuel lobby and both of whom are in the very smalll minority of scientists who dissent from the mainstream consensus on global warming. The energy companies' PR people started politicization of global warming. The IPCC and the NAS still try to adhere to the science of it, rather than the politics. If you try to avoid bias, I suggest you pay attention to the IPCC.

May I suggest also that Albert Einstein was educated in Swiss schools and did most of his early work in Switzerland.

And may I also refer you to the so-far unanswered point I cited quite a few pages back, from one of YOUR sites, which found solar forcing to be a small fraction of CO2-CH4 forcing.

Of course, the IPCC is not politicized.

Tell me another joke.

Don't like the message? Attack the messenger.

I will address your "solar forcing" comment. You HAVE NOT ADDRESSED MOST OF MY EIGHT POINT ARGUMENT.

Are you really so arrogant?

You address my points. I have, at least addressed some of yours.

Einstein in Geneva? Certainly. Was Einstein Swiss?

No, he was a German Jew.

And of course, Lindzen is only from MIT--a full professor in what is arguably the best school of science in the world. Baliunas?--only the Assistant Director of the Astrophysics Institute at the best University in the world-Harvard.

Do you want to talk personalities instead of substance?
Who in the hell is Rolf Philipona and what is the World Radiation Center in Davos?

I thought all Davos held were TB Sanitariums?

Address the substance, Username!!!!

I'll be back.

This is excellent news, indeed, for proponents of sound science and economic growth!

UK SIGNALS U-TURN ON CLIMATE DEAL

British environment secretary, Margaret Beckett, has suggested a u-turn in climate policies, suggesting voluntary targets for cutting emissions when the Kyoto climate agreement ends in 2012. Environmentalists say that, without mandatory targets, the climate deal is effectively dead. ...She said it would be impossible to achieve consensus on compulsory targets, according to UK Sunday paper the Observer. ...Last week a UN report concluded the EU as a bloc has achieved a reduction of only 1.4 percent in emissions from 1990 to 2003, far from the minus 8 percent target in 2012 that the Europeans have set themselves in the framework of Kyoto. Goals set by the EU to increase the share of renewable energy also seem to have failed.