Garnaut caught in climate panel's Himalayan glacier mistake

A blunder in the international report on climate change has flowed through to Ross Garnaut's report and the government's climate white paper

A MUCH-PUBLICISED blunder in the international report on climate change has flowed through to key Australian documents, including professor Ross Garnaut's report and the government's climate white paper.

The erroneous claim that global warming could melt the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 was contained in the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which took the information from conservation group WWF.

The claim has since been discredited and withdrawn by the IPCC. But that happened after Professor Garnaut said in his 2008 report that the Himalayan glaciers might disappear altogether by 2035.

He attributed this information to the WWF and went on to discuss the challenge that posed.

The white paper, the government's official policy document, refers to the "melting of the Himalayan glaciers" and says decreased availability of fresh water could affect more than a billion Asians by 2050. That reference is attributed to the IPCC report.