IPCC exaggerated Bangla climate fears

Scientists in Bangladesh posed a fresh challenge to the UN’s top climate change panel on Thursday, saying its doomsday forecasts for the country in the body’s landmark 2007 report were overblown.

Scientists in Bangladesh posed a fresh challenge to the UN’s top climate change panel on Thursday, saying its doomsday forecasts for the country in the body’s landmark 2007 report were overblown.

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had said a one-metre rise in sea levels would flood 17 per cent of Bangladesh and create 20 million refugees by 2050.

But the prediction ignored the role that at least one billion tonnes of sediment, carried by Himalayan rivers into Bangladesh every year, will play in countering sea level rises, a study funded by the Asian Development Bank said.