06 April 2007 - Brussels,
Belgium — The new report was agreed after
almost a week of negotiations, at the end
of a tense 24-hour marathon session which
became increasingly political. The second
of a series of four to be released throughout
2007, this report documents the widespread
effects that rising temperatures are already
having on ecosystems and human activities
and assesses the changes projected from
human induced climate change over the next
century.
"This is a glimpse into an apocalyptic
future. The earth will be transformed by
human induced climate change, unless action
is taken soon and fast," said Stephanie
Tunmore, Greenpeace International Climate
and Energy Campaigner. "What this report
shows is that we are simply running out
of time."
Some of the reports key findings:
It is likely that climate change will induce
mass extinction of species within 60-70
years. We have already seen the climate
linked extinction of some frog species but
this is just the tip of the iceberg. The
scale of risk is larger than most of the
five major extinction events that have occurred
in the earth's history.
Over the next decades the number of people
at risk of water scarcity is likely to rise
from tens of millions to billions. Steadily
decreasing water availability is projected
for India and other parts of South Asia
and Africa: whilst the poorest parts of
the world are going to the hardest hit,
wealthy countries such as Australia and
nations in Southern Europe are also on the
front line.
Reductions in food production capacity
in the poorest parts of the world are projected,
bringing more hunger and misery and undermining
achievement of the millennium development
goals. Within a few decades it is likely
that we will see climate change induced
wheat, maize and rice production drops in
India and China.
Increased drought and water scarcity are
likely to lead to growing problems of hunger
and human dislocation in Africa in coming
decades.
The loss of glaciers in Asia, Latin America
and Europe are set to cause major water
supply problems for a large fraction of
the world's population, as well as a massive
increase in glacial lake outburst floods
and other risks for those living in the
glaciated mountains.
Huge numbers of people will be at risk
due to sea level rise, storm surge and river
flooding in the Asian Megadeltas such as
the Ganges-Brahmaputra (Bangladesh) and
the Zhujiang (Pearl River).
Warming of more than another degree could
commit the world to multi-metre sea level
rise over several centuries from the partial
or total loss of the Greenland and West
Antarctic ice sheets. Huge coastal dislocation
would result and could be triggered by emissions
made in the next several decades.
Politicians watering down the threat?
In a late night manoeuvre, after nearly
22 hours of negotiations Saudi Arabia, China
and Russia gutted a key figure in the IPCC
report on impacts, removing a graph of the
warming effects of fossil fuel emissions
from a key summary table. The move was described
in an emotional statement to the Plenary
by a senior climate scientist as an "act
of scientific vandalism". Without the
warming graph the table of impacts lacks
a context to show when the projected impacts
would occur.
In another development China and Saudi
Arabia forced the weakening of a key finding
on the effects of recent warming on natural
systems. The original finding was that:
Based on observational evidence from all
continents and most oceans, there is [very]
high confidence that many natural systems,
are being affected by regional climate changes,
particularly temperature increases.
China and Saudi Arabia insisted in the
removal of "very" although the
confidence in the findings was more than
99.9%. The watered down conclusion was adopted
over the top of fundamental scientific objections
by the scientists who authored the IPCC
report.
We believe that this was unprecedented
in the history of the IPCC since 1988, and
was an ugly and damaging development. To
our knowledge there have been no similar
acts in the history of the IPCC.
It's not too late
Greenpeace is calling for global emissions
to peak by 2020 and fall rapidly thereafter
ensuring at least a 50 percent reduction
globally from 11000 levels by the year 2050,
and eliminate fossil fuel emissions before
the end of the 21st century.
"We still have options," said
Tunmore. "There is still time for an
energy revolution that will dramatically
transform our energy system and create a
carbon free economy, reducing greenhouse
gas emissions to a level that keeps the
global average temperature increase well
below 2 degrees C, avoiding the most catastrophic
impacts."
"The one option that is clearly no
longer open to us after this report is to
continue to sit on our hands and do nothing."
