This gives rise to a huge uncertainty, through which a careful manipulation of numbers at the extreme ranges of the uncertainty can produce a large warming. This is precisely the exercise the IPCC has carried out in this report, and Watson s emphasis of this result is a scare tactic, pure and simple. But Watson doesn t stop there. Basically he accuses the United States of being primarily responsible for an impending climate catastrophe. While it is true that the US the world s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, our economy is among most energy efficient in terms of output.
Brazil relies on hydroelectric energy and France, nuclear fission.
If the rest of the world achieved similar energy efficiency, global greenhouse gas emissions would be about 20 percent less than they are. But for Watson and the IPCC, desperate times require desperate measures. Negotiations at The Hague, which sought to bind countries to the Kyoto Protocols emission targets, largely failed. The US insisted that its carbon sinks forests and crops be credited against its carbon emissions. So no go it was.