Geoffrey Lean: Global warming: time to rein back on doom and gloom?

All right, I accept that this Arctic April may seem an incongruous time to address global warming. But there are important, and possibly hopeful, developments in the complex, contentious world of climate science that might finally give us all a sense of spring. For some recent research suggests that climate change might not be as catastrophic as the gloomiest predictions suggest.

The research, moreover, comes at a time when many experts are beginning to despair that warming can be prevented from running out of control. Six weeks ago, for example, Prof Sir Robert Watson – the deeply respected former chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – said he believed the world had now missed its chance to keep the average rise in global temperature to less than 2C – the level at which dangerous effects are thought inevitable. But if the new research is right, it might be held below this ominous threshold after all, if determined worldwide action is taken.