UN climate report warns of destruction of species
Pastor Dale Morgan
UN climate report warns of destruction of species*
By Charles Clover, Environment Editor
Last Updated: 1:25am BST 06/04/2007
Nearly a third of the world's species of animals and plants will be at
risk of extinction by climate change within 50 years, United Nations
scientists and governments are expected to say in a report published today.
Coral: global warming
Corals are particularly under threat of extinction
The report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is
expected to predict the loss of thousands of species in
temperature-sensitive biodiversity hot spots such as the Great Barrier
Reef, off the east coast of Australia, if temperatures go on rising.
For some species, such as corals, there will no longer be a climate that
is suitable for them to survive. Others, like the North American rock
rabbit, the pika, may be unable to reach distant regions that are more
suitable.
In Europe the species expected to be challenged include the Spanish
imperial eagle, the dunnock, crested tit and Scottish crossbill.
The final draft of the "policy-makers' summary" of the report on impacts
of climate change, seen by The Daily Telegraph, gives higher certainty
than before to the predictions of likely consequences of continued
fossil fuel emissions at present levels.
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Sources close to the groups negotiating the wording of the summary said
last night that there was a "great rift" between Saudi Arabia and the
United States and other countries over the emphasis given to
predictions, including those of species extinction.
Saudi Arabia was said to be trying to insert text emphasising the
benefits of warming for crop production in the far north of Europe and
Siberia.
The US was said to be trying to have a map of the world showing
significant observed changes in global temperatures since 1970 taken out
of the report altogether. Sources close to the discussions said talks
were expected to go on all night.
Unlike IPCC Working Group I's report in January on the science of
climate change, which predicted a three-degree global average
temperature rise by 2100, Working Group II's report contain the
specifics of how the world will be affected by warming temperatures over
a century.
The report says the world's poor will be in the front line against
climate change, facing death and injury due to heat waves, floods,
storms and droughts.
It predicts that the worst affected regions of the world will be the
Arctic, sub-Saharan Africa, small low-lying islands, and the deltas of
the major Asian rivers.
Michael Meacher, the former environment minister and stalking horse
challenger to Gordon Brown, said that neither the Government nor the
Tory leader David Cameron had "fully grasped the scale of the challenge,
let alone proposed any serious way of meeting it".
He added: "Man-made climate change is the single greatest threat facing
the world. But so far our policies have been marked by timidity and
inadequacy."