Climate Change Report | Chaos and Effect

Grist:
New climate report from IPCC will have bad news and worse news

On Friday, a comprehensive new report will map the likely effects of global warming -- and it ain't pretty. The good news is, we can expect higher food production in northern, more affluent regions. Whee! Now the bad news: globally, we can expect increased poverty and starvation, drinking-water shortages, more infectious diseases, flooding, drought, heat waves, melting glaciers, disappearing islands, vanishing species, and the continuing popularity of reality TV. The report is the second of four expected from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this year. The first, in February -- perhaps you heard about it? -- covered the basic science. The report this Friday is on "Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability." Cheat sheet: we're vulnerable, impacts will be nasty, and we'd better adapt...

--
From Scientific American:

OSLO (Reuters) - Northern nations such as Russia or Canada may be celebrating better harvests and less icy winters in coming decades even as rising seas, also caused by global warming, are washing away Pacific island states.

A draft U.N. report to be issued in Brussels on April 6 foresees unequal impacts from warming: tropical nations from Africa to the Pacific, mostly poor, are likely to bear the brunt but those nearer the poles, mostly rich, may briefly benefit.

"At least for a few decades there will be a few winners," said Rajendra Pachauri, the head of U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of 2,500 experts which will release the report outlining regional impacts of warming.

Continue and here.