Zeenews Bureau
London: Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh on Monday dismissed an IPCC report which claimed that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, saying such statements were alarmist.
The minister admitted that the glaciers are receding and some of them are in bad shape, but differed with the conclusion that the Himalyan glaciers will retreat by 2035.
The minister’s statement came in response to the RK Pachauri-headed UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report that claimed to have incorporated the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming.
A central claim of the report was that world’s glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.
In the last few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the ‘New Scientist’, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC’s 2007 report, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephonic interview with Syed Hasnain, an Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, the report said.
Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was a "speculation" and was not supported by any formal research, the report added.
If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research.
The IPCC was set up to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change.
Pachauri had previously dismissed criticism of the IPCC report on Himalayas glaciers.
