Climate - Apr 6
by Staff
Climate Panel Confident Warming Is Underway
Report to Detail the Role of Humans
Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post
The newest international assessment of the consequences of Earth's warming climate has concluded with "high confidence" that human-generated greenhouse gases are already triggering changes in ecosystems on land and sea across the globe.
The second working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was charged with tracking the impact of global warming on specific regions and species, plans to release its final report tomorrow in Brussels. The Washington Post obtained a near-final draft of the report yesterday.
That document -- which follows an IPCC study in February that concluded with at least 90 percent certainty that humans are responsible for Earth's recent warming -- provides a more detailed look at how emissions from automobiles, industry and other sources are affecting life around the world.
The draft says "much more evidence has accumulated over the past five years" to indicate that changes such as longer growing seasons and earlier leaf-unfolding and earlier egg-laying by birds are traceable to human activities.
(5 April 2007)
Related:
U.N. Draft Cites Humans in Recent Climate Shifts (Andrew Revkin at the NY Times)
Delegates work to finalize warming report (AP)
Deal is near on climate after disputes
Jeff Mason, Reuters
Climate experts neared accord on Friday on the toughest U.N. warning yet about global warming, ranging from hunger in Africa to extinctions of wildlife, after all-night disputes between scientists and governments.
"Conflict is a hard word, tension is a better word," Gary Yohe, one of the report's lead authors, told Reuters of the mood at marathon discussions in Brussels involving scientists and government delegates from more than 100 nations.
He said China, Russia and Saudi Arabia had raised most objections during the night to a 21-page summary which has to be approved unanimously and will guide policy in coming years on issues such as extending the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.
(6 April 2007)
We won't be covering much on the upcoming IPCC report, since it's already getting good coverage in the mainstream press. -BA
Climate change will hit poorest hardest, say UN scientists
David Adam, Guardian
The world's scientists will today issue the most comprehensive assessment yet of how climate change will affect human society and the planet's natural systems.
Experts from a UN panel are expected to warn that poorest countries will suffer the most, with famines, water shortages and floods all increasing.
Thousands of species will be pushed towards extinction this century, and huge ice sheets in Greenland and west Antarctica could pass a tipping point and begin to melt irreversibly.
(6 April 2007)
Study: Climate change could bring new U.S. Dust Bowl
Associated Press
Changing climate will mean increasing drought in the southwestern United States, where water already is in short supply, according to a new study.
"The bottom line message for the average person and also for the states and federal government is that they'd better start planning for a Southwest region in which the water resources are increasingly stretched," said Richard Seager of Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory.
Seager is lead author of the study published online Thursday by the journal Science.
Researchers studied 19 computer models of the climate, using data dating back to 1860 and projecting into the future. The same models were used in preparing the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
(6 April 2007)
In a first, Security Council to discuss climate change threat
China Daily/Agencies
The UN Security Council will discuss potential threats to international security from climate change for the first time later this month.
Britain's UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, the current council president, said on Wednesday the meeting will highlight "what a sensitive, difficult issue" climate change is and the importance of addressing its potential security ramifications from rising temperatures increasing water levels and swallowing up island nations to possible famine.
"This is one of the big challenges for the world for the next century, literally," he said.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett will chair the April 17 meeting and has invited the 14 other council nations to be represented at ministerial level if they wish, Parry said. "The traditional triggers for conflict which exist out there are likely to be exacerbated by the effect of climate change," he said.
The council will look at the impact of climate change on water, agricultural production and the potential for famine, he said.
"I don't want to state these are factors that determine conflict, no," Parry said. "But they will, at the margin, and sometimes more than the margin, have a contributing effect, too, so that's part of our argument."
In the Maldives, for instance, a 1.5 C or 2 C change in temperature will increase the ocean level by 3 meters, which would put the country under water, he said.
"If you therefore know your state will not exist, to talk to them about security is something they wouldn't doubt," Parry said.
(6 April 2007)
Published on 6 Apr 2007 by EB. Archived on 6 Apr 2007.
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