The Universal Ecological Fund has issued a report which foresees apolcalyptic consequences if the recommendations on cutting carbon emissions aren’t met. As the Economic Times of India reports:

WASHINGTON: The Earth will be 2.4 degree Celsius warmer by 2020 if the world continues with the business-as-usual approach to climate change and India would be one of the hardest hit countries witnessing upto 30 per cent reduction in crop yields, a new study has claimed.

The rising temperatures will adversely affect the world’s food production and India would be the hardest hit, according to the analysis by the Universal Ecological Fund (FEU-US), the US subsidiary of FEU founded in Argentina in 1990. The report titled ‘The Food Gap — The Impacts of Climate Change on Food Production: A 2020 Perspective’ predicted that crop yield in India, the second largest world producer of rice and wheat, would fall up to 30 per cent by the end of this decade -- Economic Times [India]. By 2020, World to be 2.4c Warmer, India to Be Hardest Hit.

As most people will be aware, these claims are wildly alarmist, and fall far outside even the warnings issued by the IPCC. So who is the Universal Ecological Fund relying on for its information?

Step forward Dr Osvaldo Canziani, former co-chair of working group II of the IPCC, and now the “scientific advisor” to the FEU, parent body of the Universal Ecological Fund. India’s Navhind Times quotes both Dr Canziani, and Ms Lilana Hisas, the executive director of FEU-US:

“The evidence that man-made greenhouse gases would cause the temperature of the planet to rise has been available for almost two decades. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Fourth Assessment Report (2007) has concluded that, unequivocally, the Earth’s warming is anthropogenic (man-made),” said FEU scientific adviser, Dr Osvaldo Canziani, the former co-chair of working group II of the IPCC. The analysis and data utilised to produce the report is based on key documents already published by the IPCC and other UN agencies.

“The key to our report was to analyse, synthesise and update published documents and data from disparate sources and present it in an accessible way,” Ms Liliana Hisas, executive director of FEU-US and author of the report, said.

“The analysis is based on the conclusions of the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. Our other guiding principles were using the business-as-usual path the world is currently following, and assess the impacts of climate change with a short-term target of one decade.”  --The Navhind Times. Global Warming May Bring Indian Crop Yield Down 30%: Study.

The Universal Ecological Fund is the American arm of the Federacion Ecologia Universal, part of ECODES, which according to its Wikipedia entry:

ECODES was established on 10 March 1992 in Zaragoza, Spain, with the intent to find solutions to shared problems and bring about social change by becoming an influential non-governmental actor able to mobilize support and open dialogue between all stakeholders involved. . . . In the Northern Hemisphere they concentrate their work on transforming existing economic and social structures and in the Southern Hemisphere, especially Latin America, they offer expertise and assistance in technical matters and funding.

Isn’t it strange where these former IPCC chiefs end up?

Haunting the Library, 18 January 2011

Update: EurekAlert Withdraws Climate Change Paper

An online news service sponsored by the world's premier scientific association unwittingly promoted a study making the false claim that catastrophic global warming would occur within nine years, the Guardian has learned.