Budapest - The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has agreed to put out its next major assessment report by 2014, the body's chairman Rajendra Pachauri said Thursday. The IPCC's previous report was largely responsible for last year's award of the Peace Prize, which the organization shared with former US vice president Al Gore for increasing public awareness of man-made climate change.
Pachauri, speaking to journalists during the body's 28th congress in Budapest, said that the IPCC would attempt to make as big an impact with the next report as it had with the previous one.
"One thing we have done consciously is make sure what we do is done on a large scale. That is why there was a major impact worldwide with the fourth report," he said.
"We would not be meeting expectations if we did not do the same with the fifth report," he added.
The IPCC's fourth report served as a basis for stormy negotiations in Bali last December, which brought about a landmark agreement to set a road map for strengthening international action on climate change.
Further talks in Bangkok last Friday came up with a work programme for a long-term international agreement to be concluded in Copenhagen by the end of 2009.
The ultimate goal is to produce concrete plans to halt increases in global carbon emissions by 2015 and dramatically cut them by 2050.
The IPCC also used the conference to launch a paper detailing the effects of climate change on the earth's water supply, which was compiled from the fourth assessment report.
"We have enough observations, made over decades, from which we can see...the whole cycle of water is changing as result of climate change," Pachauri said.
Pachauri warned that there would be an increased risk of extreme weather events, flooding and drought in many areas across the globe in the future, with areas such as sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia particularly vulnerable to drought.
He also warned that changes to the earth's water supply could have serious consequences for the availability of food in the future.
"This is a serious concern, because globally we have a problem of food security. We may see decline in agricultural production - this is a problem as with increasing populations comes a higher demand for food," he said.
The price of staples such as rice and wheat has already risen due to an increase in demand and poor harvests. Food riots have broken out in Egypt, Haiti and several African nations over the rising prices.
The head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Jacques Diouf told a conference in New Delhi Wednesday that high prices and shortages of rice, wheat and corn could help spread the riots to many developing countries.
"There is a risk that this unrest will spread in countries where 50 to 60 percent of income goes to food," he said.
The IPCC conference was also being used as a platform to decide how to use the 5 million Swedish kronor (0.75 million dollars) awarded as part of the Peace Prize, what direction research will take in the near future and how the panel will be organized.
The IPCC was also debating whether to issue a separate report on the relative merits of renewable energy sources.
