UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) delegates from more than 140 countries met last week in Valencia, Spain to agree on a fourth “synthesis report” summarising key scientific research on climate change from scientists across the world.

The five-day meeting concluded on Friday with the approval of a 20-day summary of countless data pages and computer projections, compiled since 2001 by the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize-winning IPCC.

The summary report provided a common scientific baseline for future political discussion on climate change, as it was adopted by consensus, meaning that all participating governments accept it and cannot disavow its conclusions.

The document summarises the scientific consensus on climate change caused by human beings and will be distributed to delegates due to attend a key UN meeting in Indonesia next month. The UN meeting is intended to launch an international cooperation process to control global warming and to produce a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.

The fourth report describes how climate systems are changing and why, the impact on people and ecosystems, and outlines many possible future impacts if action is not taken to slow the trend.

It specifically points out what is risked if governments fail to respond: melting ice sheets that could lead to a rapid rise in sea levels and the extinction of large numbers of species brought about by even moderate amounts of warming, of 1-3 degrees.