Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, center, with cabinet ministers and top officials ride during a campaign promoting the use of bicycles to reduce carbon emission ahead of U.N. conference on climate change, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2007. Indonesia will host the conference next month on the island of Bali to decide the future course of the worldwide push to curb greenhouse gas emissions after the 2012 expiration of the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
Environmentalists and authors of the report expected tense discussions on what to include and leave out of the document, which is a synthesis of thousands of scientific papers. A summary of about 25 pages will be negotiated line-by-line this week, then adopted by consensus.
The document to be issued Saturday sums up the scientific consensus on how rapidly the Earth is warming and the effects already observed; the impact it could have for billions of people; and what steps can be taken to keep the planet's temperature from rising to disastrous levels.
Everyone will feel its effects, but global warming will hit the poorest countries hardest and will "threaten the very survival" of some people, he said.
"Failing to recognize the urgency of this message and act on it would be nothing less that criminally irresponsible" and a direct attack on the world's poorest people, De Boer said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is to attend the launch of the report, which will provide the factual underpinning for a crucial meeting next month in Bali, Indonesia.
"It will not cost the earth to save the Earth," as little as 0.1 percent of the gross global product for 30 years, said Janos Pasztor, of the U.N. Environmental Program, a parent body of the IPCC.
By ARTHUR MAX
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