Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian. The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.

 

The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises.

Tiny Tuvalu, barely two meters above sea level, has summoned the rest of the world to take stronger action against climate change before it sinks. The alarm was sounded on the heels of a call from Britain’s chief scientific adviser for an international agreement on warming strategy.

Britain’s chief scientific adviser says global warming poses a greater threat than world terrorism and agreement must be reached within two years to mitigate global warming and minimize environmental catastrophe.

The world must slash greenhouse-gas emissions in ten years or face “significant risks of appalling global harm,” says the UK-based Institute of Public Policy Research. The report says the landmark Stern report, which warned of an economic collapse equal to the 1930s depression unless emissions were curbed, is “too conservative” and governments need to move further and faster, with carbon emissions reaching their peak by 2010 to 2013.

"To understand the whole global warming debate you have to understand that it is not about any dramatic warming of the Earth. The Earth has been warming since the end of the last Ice Age with time out for some mini-Ice Age episodes," according to professional skeptic Richard Lindzen, whose assertions formed the basis of a recent piece in The American Daily.

The assertion is contradicted by more than a few facts: 

A 3-degree increase in the average global temperature is virtually inevitable, according to Sir David King, Tony Blair's science adviser. Three degrees may not sound like much — until you see what the latest research from Bristol University — and published by the US National Academy of Sciences —  indicates.