How climate change will affect the world
Pastor Dale Morgan
*
*How climate change will affect the world*
* David Adam
* The Guardian
* Wednesday September 19 2007
The effects of climate change will be felt sooner than scientists
realised and the world must learn to live with the effects, experts said
yesterday.
Martin Parry, a climate scientist with the Met Office, said destructive
changes in temperature, rainfall and agriculture were now forecast to
occur several decades earlier than thought. He said vulnerable people
such as the old and poor would be the worst affected, and that world
leaders had not yet accepted their countries would have to adapt to the
likely consequences.
Speaking at a meeting to launch the full report on the impacts of global
warming by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),
Professor Parry, co-chairman of the IPCC working group that wrote the
report, said: "We are all used to talking about these impacts coming in
the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren. Now we know that it's us."
He added politicians had wasted a decade by focusing only on ways to cut
emissions, and had only recently woken up to the need to adapt.
"Mitigation has got all the attention, but we cannot mitigate out of
this problem. We now have a choice between a future with a damaged world
or a severely damaged world."
The international response to the problem has failed to grasp that
serious consequences such as reduced crop yields and water shortages are
now inevitable, he said. Countries such as Britain need to focus on
helping nations in the developing world cope with the predicted impacts,
by helping them to introduce irrigation and water management technology,
drought resistant crops and new building techniques.
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, said: "Wheat production in
India is already in decline, for no other reason than climate change.
Everyone thought we didn't have to worry about Indian agriculture for
several decades. Now we know it's being affected now." There are signs a
similar shift is under way in China, he added.
The summary chapter of yesterday's report was published in April, after
arguments between scientists and political officials over its contents.
Prof Parry said: "Governments don't like numbers, so some numbers were
brushed out of it."
The report warns that Africa and the Arctic will bear the brunt of
climate impacts, along with small islands such as Fiji, and Asian river
megadeltas including the Mekong.
It says extreme weather events are likely to become more intense and
more frequent, and the effect on ecosystems could be severe, with up to
30% of plant and animal species at risk of extinction if the average
rise in global temperatures exceeds 1.5C-2.5C. The consequences of
rising temperatures are already being felt on every continent, it adds.
Prof Parry said it was "very unlikely" that average temperature rise
could be limited to 2C, as sought by European governments. That would
place 2 billion more people at risk of water shortages, and hundreds of
millions more will face hunger, the report says.