Environment Agency chief
calls for renewed urgency on securing international
treaty
Environment Agency chief
calls for renewed urgency on securing international
treaty
The on-going media storm about the reliability
of climate change data must not be allowed
to undermine the fact that our climate is
changing and that we must act to combat
the causes and consequences that will inevitably
follow, Environment Agency Chairman Lord
Smith will say tonight. (3 Feb)
In his keynote address to Henley Business
School, Lord Smith will say:(3Feb)
“Recent challenges to
one or two points in the International Panel
on Climate Change (IPPC) reports do not
mean that we do not need to worry anymore.
Sloppily expressed emails at the University
of East Anglia were irresponsible and very
damaging. A blithe assumption that the Himalayan
glaciers may melt by 2035 – when they won’t
– should never have been inserted in the
IPCC report.
“But let’s not allow one or two errors to
undermine the overwhelming strength of evidence
that has been painstakingly accumulated,
peer reviewed, tested and tested again,
and that shows overwhelmingly that our emissions
of greenhouse gases are having a serious
impact on the earth’s atmosphere, and that
as a result climate change is happening
and will accelerate.
Sceptics
“We should not underestimate the damage
that has been done by the glee with which
the sceptics have seized on the one or two
scientific mistakes and used them to undermine
the whole consensus about the evidence and
the conclusions we need to draw from it.
“Gradually, the public here in the UK, and
across much of Europe, had come to accept
the reality and the urgency of climate change.
There were still debates about what precisely
to do to counter it, but at least the fundamental
recognition was there. I think that is probably
less true now than it was three months ago.
And that is a tragedy. We need to take the
argument back to the sceptics, and make
the powerful, convincing and necessary case
for climate change much clearer to everyone.
Evidence for change
“The evidence of change is indeed there.
The glaciers of the Alps and the Himalayas
are retreating. Weather patterns around
the world are becoming more erratic and
more extreme. The most intensive rainfall
ever experienced in one location over a
24 hour period in England fell on Cumbria
last November, and caused the tragic consequences
of the severe flooding that we saw in Cockermouth,
Keswick and Workington.
“We can’t say for certain that these things
– or indeed the intense heat recently experienced
in Australia, or the droughts in Kenya –
are caused by climate change. But we can
see with our own eyes that the climatic,
weather and temperature trends are changing,
and we know that these hitherto exceptional
events are likely to become more frequent
over coming years.
“We know that if we can hold the average
global air temperature increase to 2 degrees
we have a chance of surviving more or less
intact. But if it ends up being 4 degrees
or more, the impact on population, on water
resources, on sea levels, on agriculture,
on weather patterns, on biodiversity, and
on the quality of human life across the
world, will be severe.
“That is why the international discussions
on climate change at Copenhagen were so
important. And why the outcome was so disappointing.
We always knew that we wouldn’t emerge from
Copenhagen with a full signed-and-sealed
treaty with firm commitments for specific
emissions reductions from everyone around
the world. But I did hope that we might
emerge with rather more than we did, with
at least a set of in-principle commitments
and some target dates and a map charting
where we were going to go from here.
Renewed urgency
“Instead, we have the Copenhagen Accord,
drawn up by the United States, China, India,
Brazil and South Africa, with some aspirations
and agreements, and an earnest of intent
to build on this during the coming year.
And build on it we must.
“The worst response to Copenhagen would
be to throw up our hands in horror and say
nothing was achieved and therefore we should
give up on the search for international
commitments and agreement.
“We need to continue the drive for an international
treaty. And do so with renewed urgency.
There are some useful fundamentals in the
Copenhagen Accord – the aim of a 2 degree
limit to temperature increase; the principle
of north-south flows of aid and support
in order to ensure that the developing world
can grow more sustainably than those of
us who have largely caused the problem up
to now; and commitments to help combat deforestation.
We should now work as hard as we can to
build these up into more specific commitments
over the next 11 months.”
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