World could warm by seven degrees - scientist
Pastor Dale Morgan
World could warm by seven degrees - scientist*
AAP | Wednesday, 07 May 2008
Climate change is happening faster than predicted and the world could be
as much as seven degrees hotter by the end of the century, a CSIRO
scientist says.
New Australian research showed current policies did not go far enough to
manage the risks posed by climate change, according to Dr Roger Jones, a
climate risk analyst with CSIRO's energy transformed flagship.
Global action was needed by 2015 to adequately reduce those risks, he said.
The research, conducted by CSIRO and Victoria University, showed even if
severe emissions cuts were implemented from 2030, warming of 2.2degC to
4.7degC could still happen by 2100.
If the present high emissions path was followed, the most likely warming
was between 3.4degC and 7.2degC.
The risks posed by climate change were worse than had been predicted by
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2000, Dr Jones said.
The world had moved on to a new economic path, driven by developing
countries and commodity-producers like Australia, which would lead to
more serious emissions scenarios than the panel's scientists had forecast.
"We need better methods for updating climate risks and assessing the
benefits of avoided damages by investing in new technology and other
measures," Dr Jones said.
"Rapidly emerging climate risks fuelled by faster than projected
emissions growth make this task all the more urgent."
But the fight against climate change is not all bad news.
Work undertaken by CSIRO showed it was very likely cuts to emissions by
2050 would pay for themselves by 2100 in economic terms.
Dr Jones, speaking to the Kyoto Policy in Practice conference in Sydney
today, said the Kyoto Protocol was the starting point in a long battle
against climate change.
"In the race to reduce climate risks, the Kyoto Protocol is the first
lap. If we want minimise those risks, we will have to quickly learn how
to drive very fast," he said.
The major benefits from Kyoto were not the reductions in emissions it
might achieve, but the lessons learnt about mitigating the increasing
risks of climate change.