Last week the Global Humanitarian Forum, led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan released a report claiming that global warming is already killing 300,000 people a year. The study was even reviewed by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Chair Rajendra Pachauri. How accurate is this study though? The Times reports:
The research was carried out by Dalberg Global Advisers, a consultancy firm, who collated all existing statistics on the human impacts of climate change. The report acknowledges a “significant margin of error” in its estimates.
Mr Annan said the report could never be as rigorous as a scientific study, but said: “We feel it is the most plausible account of the current impact of climate change today.”
University of Colorado professor Roger Pielke comments:
Why can’t the work produced by the GHF be “as rigorous as a scientific study”? Well, one answer is that scientific studies on this topic simply don’t give the desired answers.