Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report: ‘No One Will Be Untouched by Climate Change’
ENVIRONMENT, 31 Mar 2014
Danielle Demetriou in Yokohama – The Telegraph
Flooding, storm surges, droughts and heatwaves are among key risks of global warming that will pose growing threats to humans.
No one on the planet will be untouched by the damaging effects of global warming in coming decades, the chairman of the organisation behind the world’s most comprehensive climate change study to date warned on Monday [31Mar 2014].
Flooding, storm surges, droughts and heatwaves are among key risks of global warming that will pose growing threats to humans in the future due to rising temperatures.
Violent conflicts, food shortages and infrastructure damage were also forecast to become more prevalent over coming decades, while a growing number of animals and marine species will face increased risk of extinction.
The warnings were published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II report on Monday, which was compiled by more than 300 authors from 70 different countries with contributions from thousands of global experts.
The report is the first of its kind to examine rising temperatures as a series of comprehensive global risks caused by increasingly perilous levels of carbon dioxide emitted by traffic, power stations and other fossil-fuel burners as well as methane from deforestation and farming.
Launching the report in Yokohama, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, said: “Why should the world pay attention to this report? We have assessed impacts as they are happening, impacts on natural and human systems on all continents and oceans.
“I’d like to emphasise that in view of these impacts and those projected in the future, nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change.”
Vicente Barros, a leading Argentine-born climate change expert and a co-chair of the report, added: “We live in an era of man-made climate change. In many cases, we are not prepared for the climate-related risks that we already face. Investments in better preparation can pay dividends both for the present and for the future.”
Extreme weather patterns, including a higher risk of flooding, were cited as a growing consequence of rising greenhouse gas emissions, with Europe, Asia and small island states highlighted as being vulnerable, while droughts were also forecast to become more common.
Urban communities would also face “many global risks”, as a result of growing issues related to heatwaves, extreme rainfall, flooding, landslides, air pollution drought and water shortages, it warned.
The growing scarcity of freshwater sources and shrinking crop yields would lead to violent conflict, such as civil wars, the report warns, alongside the displacement of numerous communities, referred to as “climate refugees” by Dr Pachauri.
“We have reasons to believe that if the world doesn’t do anything […] and the extent of climate change continues to increase, then the very social stability of human systems could be at stake,” he said.
A “large fraction” of animals and marine creatures also faced an increased risk of extinction over the coming decades if global warming continued as projected, according to the report.
Rising carbon dioxide concentrations were forecast to acidify oceans, destroying coral reefs and threatening shelled marine creatures, impacting communities reliant on the sea as a food source.
However, scientists behind the report also stated that by taking immediate steps to reduce carbon emissions over the coming decades, there could be a reduction in potential consequences by the end of the century.
“Climate-change adaptation is not an exotic agenda that has never been tried,” said Chris Field, a global ecology director at the Carnegie Institution in Washington and also co-chair of the report, entitled “Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability”.
“Governments, firms, and communities around the world are building experience with adaptation. This experience forms a starting point for bolder, more ambitious adaptations that will be important as climate and society continue to change.”
The report prompted a string of global calls for stronger government initiatives to tackle the issues that are causing temperatures to rise in order to minimise the future dangers outlined by scientists.
Sven Harmeling, climate change advocacy coordinator at the humanitarian agency CARE, said: “From more extreme and intense weather-related disasters, to reduced food security, to rising sea-levels, climate change is fast becoming a scandal of epic proportions for the world’s poorest people – and it’s unfolding right before our eyes.”
Tim Gore, Oxfam’s head of policy for food and climate change, added: “This report is categorical that climate change has already meant significant declines in net global yields of staple crops like wheat and maize.
“Climate change will continue to hit crop harvests hard in the future, at the same time as demand for food is increasing. You don’t need to be a climate scientist to know that falling crop yields and rising demand does not add up to a food secure future on this planet.”
The same panel of global experts behind the study, which has issued four previous “assessment reports” over the past 25 years, will issue a third volume on April 13 in Berlin, in which it will unveil its strategies for tackling carbon emissions.
The latest study is the most in-depth to date, in terms of forecasting the impact of global warming in specific details in addition to emphasising the social consequences in terms of conflicts and displacement.
It comes six months after the first volume of the long-awaited report declared that scientists were more certain than ever that humans were behind the growing problem of global warming.
It was seven years ago that the IPCC issued its last major report, which was widely attributed with fuelling a shift in global climate change policies leading up to the 2009 UN climate summit in Copenhagen.
However, the reputation of the report was tainted when it emerged that there were several mistakes, in particular relating to glaciers, which were hailed as proof of bias by climate change sceptics.
The most recent report published on Monday has not been without its controversy, with one of its authors pulling out of the writing team just days before publication last week, amid claims that it was too “alarmist”.
Richard Tol, a Dutch professor of economics at Sussex University, told media that he had decided to withdraw from the report because he disagreed with some of the findings.
Acknowledging that some authors “strongly disagree with me”, he told Reuters: “The drafts became too alarmist.”
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Go to Original – telegraph.co.uk
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