Global Warming causing food, water shortages: U.N. report
Pastor Dale Morgan
Global Warming causing food, water shortages: U.N. report*
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
Reuters
Tuesday, March 13, 2007; 1:13 PM
OSLO (Reuters) - Global warming is causing severe food and water
shortages for millions of people by 2100 and trigger a melt of polar ice
that could keep ocean levels rising for centuries, a draft U.N. report
shows.
It said the poor were most at risk, for instance in sub-Saharan Africa
and around deltas of major rivers in Asia.
The survey by the world's top climate scientists, due for release in
Brussels on April 6, said climate change widely blamed on human
activities was already under way with impacts ranging from melting
glaciers to earlier than normal plant growth in spring.
"Many natural systems, on all continents and in some oceans, are being
affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature
increases," according to a copy seen by Reuters. The draft will have a
final review by governments and experts.
"Impacts are very likely to increase due to increased frequencies and
intensities of extreme weather impacts," the draft said. It said there
were still chances to prevent the most damaging impacts if governments
acted.
It pointed to threats such as a melting of Greenland and west Antarctic
ice sheets that could cause sea levels to rise, extinctions of species
from the Amazon to the Arctic or more severe heat waves in U.S. cities.
"Climate change increases the number of people at risk of hunger
marginally," it said, compared to projected declines caused by economic
growth. But a large rise in temperatures could put up to 120 million
people at risk of hunger.
MELTING GLACIERS
A melting of glaciers, such as in the Himalayas, could cut summer and
autumn flows in regions where more than a billion people live.
Farmers near the equator were likely to suffer falling crop yields even
with small temperature rises, while farmers living nearer the poles
might see some immediate benefits.
"Global agricultural production potential is likely to increase with
increases in global average temperature up to about 3 Celsius (5.4 F),
but above this is very likely to decrease," the draft said.
Hundreds of millions of people would suffer from water scarcity even
with a small rise in temperatures. Between 1.1 to 3.2 billion might
suffer if temperatures jumped by more than 4 Celsius (7.2F), at the
higher end of forecasts.
Water scarcity could damage semi-arid regions such as the Mediterranean
basin, the western United States, southern Africa, northeastern Brazil,
southern and eastern Australia.
The draft, detailing likely impacts and ways to adapt to climate change,
is the second of four studies this year based on the work of 2,500
climate experts in the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC).
The first report concluded there was at least 90 percent certainty that
human activities, led by burning fossil fuels, were stoking warming. The
reports will guide governments trying to combat climate change.
The draft report said hundreds of millions of people would be vulnerable
to rising sea levels that could swamp Pacific islands, coasts and cities
from New York to Shanghai.
It said there was "medium confidence" that a rise in temperatures of
more than 1 to 2 Celsius (1.8-3.6F) might melt parts of Greenland and
west Antarctica, "causing sea level rise of 4 to 6 meters (13-20 ft)
over centuries to millennia."
And it said that about 20-30 percent of species could be at risk of
extinction with a moderate temperature rise.