Less Land Below Sea-level Than U.N. Reported

U.N. Report wrongly stated 55 percent of the Netherlands lies below sea level.
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Less Land Below Sea-level Than U.N. Reported
Canoes pass windmills in Weteringbrug, Western Netherlands, on May 29, 2009. A U.N. Report wrongly stated 55 percent of the Netherlands lies below sea level. (Nils van Houts/AFP/Getty Images)
2/15/2010
Updated:
10/1/2015

<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/NETHERLANDS-C.jpg" alt="Canoes pass windmills in Weteringbrug, Western Netherlands, on May 29, 2009. A U.N. Report wrongly stated 55 percent of the Netherlands lies below sea level. (Nils van Houts/AFP/Getty Images)" title="Canoes pass windmills in Weteringbrug, Western Netherlands, on May 29, 2009. A U.N. Report wrongly stated 55 percent of the Netherlands lies below sea level. (Nils van Houts/AFP/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1823007"/></a>
Canoes pass windmills in Weteringbrug, Western Netherlands, on May 29, 2009. A U.N. Report wrongly stated 55 percent of the Netherlands lies below sea level. (Nils van Houts/AFP/Getty Images)
In the latest of a series of embarrassing mistakes that surfaced in a U.N. benchmark report on climate change, climate experts said on Sunday that the report wrongly stated that 55 percent of the Netherlands lies below sea level, while in fact only 26 percent of the country is.

“The sea-level statistic was used for background information only,” said the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in a note, the Guardian reports.

The mistake is expected to further increase skepticism toward climate change claims by the U.N. body. Last month the IPCC had to acknowledge it had mistakenly stated in its report that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, a claim that has no scientific basis, according to British media.