The Stern report on climate change underestimated the risks of global warming, its author said on Wednesday, and should have presented a gloomier view of the future. "We underestimated the risks ... we underestimated the damage associated with temperature increases ... and we underestimated the probabilities of temperature increases,' Lord Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank, told the Financial Times on Wednesday.

President George W. Bush on Wednesday proposed a target of stopping growth in US greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, delivering his opening shot in negotiations with the US Congress and international community about climate change. The target marked the most specific goal yet set by the Bush administration for curbing carbon emissions, but fell short of more aggressive targets set by European countries and proposed by Democrats in Congress.

The sceptical literature on global warming is tiny and, to put it generously, of variable quality. Dissent from the received wisdom that climate change is a global emergency that calls for drastic remedies has been overwhelmed. The climate-science establishment is on board; so is the larger scientific community; and so, lately, are most governments, with Britain's leading the way.

Scientists predicted Thursday that climate change in coming decades will cause more flooding in the Northern Hemisphere and droughts in some southern and arid zones. In addition, they said that some areas around the Mediterranean, parts of southern Africa, northeastern Brazil and the western US region will likely suffer water shortages. Rajendra Pachauri, the chief UN climate scientist, said at the end of a meeting in Budapest that the rising frequency and intensity of floods and droughts could lead to a food crisis.

Sir, Nigel Lawson's promotion of his new book ("Stop this foolish overreaction to climate change", April 6) does his readers a disservice by ignoring the Stern review and the new literature on the risks of climate change. The review estimated the costs at between 5 and 20 per cent of world gross domestic product, depending on an assessment of the risks and treatment of the discount rate.

Over the past five years I have become increasingly concerned at the scaremongering of the climate alarmists, which has led the governments of Europe to commit themselves to a drastic reduction in carbon emissions, regardless of the economic cost of doing so. The subject is such a complex one, involving science, economics and politics in almost equal measure, that to do it justice I have written a book, albeit a short one, thoroughly referenced and sourced. But the bare bones are clear.

Head Of UN Climate Panel To Seek New Term NORWAY: April 7, 2008 OSLO - India's Rajendra Pachauri said on Saturday he will seek a new six-year term as head of the UN climate panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former US Vice President Al Gore. "I have after a great deal of reflection and consultation decided to express interest in a second term," Pachauri, 67, told Reuters. "Of course, the government of India would have to send in my nomination, and I hope that will happen soon," he wrote in an e-mail.

Al Gore is no longer known just as the former vp of the US. He's been creating waves as a campaigner for preventing global warming, a mission that won him the latest Nobel peace prize along with our own R K Pachauri, chairman of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. On a recent visit to India Gore launched the India Chapter of his ngo 'The Climate Project' along with Pachauri.

Contrary to a favoured theory of climate sceptics, scientists claim to have found evidence that solar activity is not linked to global warming. In their study, the researchers from the Lancaster University in Britain used three different methods and found that changes in the Sun's intensity are in no way behind modern climate change.