-
Source: ONE News -
Related
Global warming is happening faster than expected and at worst
could raise sea levels by up to two metres by 2100, a group of
scientists said in a warning to next month's UN climate summit in
Copenhagen.
In what they called a Copenhagen Diagnosis, updating findings in a
broader 2007 UN climate report, 26 experts urged action to cap
rising world greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 or 2020 to avoid the
worst impacts of climate change.
"Climate change is accelerating beyond expectations," a joint
statement said, pointing to factors including a retreat of Arctic
sea ice in summer and melting of ice sheets on Greenland and
Antarctica.
"Accounting for ice-sheets and glaciers, global sea-level rise may
exceed one metre by 2100, with a rise of up to two metres
considered an upper limit," it said.
Ocean levels would keep on rising after 2100 and several metres
of sea level rise must be expected over the next few
centuries.
Many of the authors were on the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, which in 2007 foresaw a sea level rise of 18-59 cms
by 2100 but did not take account of a possible accelerating melt of
Greenland and Antarctica.
Coastal cities from Buenos Aires to New York, island states such as
Tuvalu in the Pacific or coasts of Bangladesh or China would be
highly vulnerable to rising seas.
"This is a final scientific call for the climate negotiators from
192 countries who must embark on the climate protection train in
Copenhagen," Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam
Institute for Climate Impact Research, said in a
statement.
Amazon, monsoon
Copenhagen will host a December 7-18 meeting meant to come up with
a new UN plan to succeed the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.
But a full legal treaty seems out of reach and talks are likely
to be extended into 2010.
"Delay in action risks irreversible damage," the researchers wrote
in the 64-page report, pointing to a feared runaway thaw of ice
sheets or possible abrupt disruptions to the Amazon rainforest or
the West African Monsoon.
The researchers said global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil
fuels were almost 40% higher in 2008 than in 1990.
"Carbon dioxide emissions cannot be allowed to continue to rise if
humanity intends to limit the risk of unacceptable climate change,"
said Richard Somerville of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography
at the University of California.
In a respite, the International Energy Agency has said emissions
will fall by up to three percent in 2009 due to recession.
The report said world temperatures had been rising by an average of
0.19 Celsius a decade over the past 25 years and that the warming
trend was intact, even though the hottest year since records began
in the mid-19th century was 1998.
"There have been no significant changes in the underlying warming
trend," it said.
A strong, natural El Nino weather event in the Pacific pushed up temperatures in 1998.
