• by Jim Lobe (washington)
• Thursday, September 24, 2009
• Inter Press Service

Less than three months before a key global negotiation on curbing greenhouse gases, a new study released here Thursday by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) warns that climate change is taking place faster than anticipated.

The 68-page study, 'Climate Change Science Compendium 2009', suggests that many of the more dire predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — a group that includes hundreds of the world's leading climate and atmospheric scientists — two years ago are increasingly likely to become reality.

The new report is based on some 400 major peer-reviewed scientific studies and research institutions over the last three years, and will be continuously updated as new studies are published. It warns that Earth may rapidly be approaching certain thresholds or 'tipping points' that can permanently disrupt entire ecosystems that currently support the lives of millions of people.

The latest studies predict Earth's average temperatures could rise as much as 4.3 degrees Celsius — the outer limit of the IPCC's estimates — by the end of the century, even if industrialised nations comply with their most ambitious emission-reduction targets, according to the Compendium.

'Just a few years ago, we thought sea level rise might become an issue in a century or two,' said UNEP's executive director, Achim Steiner. 'The latest research (on sea level rise) is something that is really quite breathtaking,' he said, adding, 'It is not inconceivable that sea level rise may reach two metres ...in the lifetime of a child born today.'

He said the data being collected by scientists on Earth's key systems affected by climate change — including such as weather, ice, and oceans — were contributing to an 'exponential growth in our understanding' of the multiple impacts of increasing amounts of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, emitted into the atmosphere.

The research of the past three years, he stressed, tends to confirm some of the most worrisome predictions of the IPCC's 2007 report, which was based on much less recent research.

'We need the world to realize, once and for all, that the time to act is now and we must work together to address this monumental challenge,' wrote U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who hosted a one-day summit meeting on climate change Tuesday at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, in the report's forward. 'This is the moral challenge of our generation.'

The Compendium is being published just as the Group of 20 (G20) leaders of the world's most powerful and populous nations are gathering for a two-day summit hosted by U.S. President Barack Obama in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

As in their July summit in L'Aquila, Italy, climate change is expected to figure high on Friday's agenda in Pittsburgh. At L'Aquila, the leaders of the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialised nations, including Obama, pledged to cut their countries' emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

The report's release was clearly designed to highlight the urgency of taking strong action to curb emissions when some 190 countries convene in Copenhagen, Denmark, to begin hashing out a new emissions treaty to take the place of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol by 2012.

'We are headed to very serious changes in our planet and we need to appreciate how serious (they are) in order to lend support to the transformational policy measures that need to be taken,' Steiner said.

The report found that growth in the global economy in the early 2000s and the increased use of carbon emissions led to rapid increase in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.

The result has contributed to faster sea-level rise, ocean acidification, melting Arctic sea ice, warming of polar land masses, and freshening of ocean currents than had been predicted by most scientists, according to the report.

Most models developed the last 2007 IPPC report predicted an ice-free September for the Arctic Ocean by the end of the 21st century, but new studies have moved that date up to as early as 2030.

Meanwhile, ice melt in mountain glaciers — on which one-fifth of the world's population depends for their water supply — and on the Greenland Ice Sheet has been accelerating at a more rapid rate than previously predicted, according to the Compendium.

'The arctic is really the bellwether, because what's happening in the Arctic tells us what (we face),' said Robert Correll. 'It's about 30 years ahead of us. Things are happening much more rapidly; the glaciers are melting and receding three or four times faster than they were in 1980.'

While the 2007 IPCC report projected sea level rise of between 18 and 59 centimetres by 2100, it did not take into account, due to a lack of consensus, the large-scale change in ice-melt changes that have since been confirmed. Thus, the most recent estimates of sea-level rise between 1990 and 2100 range between 80 centimetres and 2 metres.

Moreover, oceans are becoming more acidic more quickly than expected, according to the Compendium. Unable to build the external skeletons on which their life depends, shellfish and corals — and the abundant sea life they sustain — are becoming increasingly threatened throughout the world's marine ecosystems.

Besides the Arctic and the oceans, land masses throughout the world are also showing growing evidence of the impact of carbon emissions on their climates and ecosystems.

Tipping points may now be reached in a matter of years or just a few decades that could result in dramatic changes to monsoons in the Indian sub-continent, the Sahara, and West Africa.

Both northern and southern Africa face increased aridity during the their dry seasons, while the remaining glaciers in the central part of the continent are expected to disappear by 2030, with profound effects on the surrounding populations and ecosystems, according to the most recent studies cited in the report.

Meanwhile, most of Australia could face a permanent drought crisis during dry seasons, while the retreat of Himalayan glaciers in Asia threatens the headwaters of the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra rivers that sustain one of the world's most populous regions. At the same time, the rise in sea level threatens other highly populated areas in South and Southeast Asia.

Similarly, the loss of glaciers in the South American Andes threatens populations in that region, while deforestation of the Amazonian region could reach a 'tipping point' within 50 years resulting in an average surface temperature rise of between three and four degrees Celsius.

Major efforts to reduce carbon emissions are needed now if the worst scenarios are to be avoided or at least mitigated, according to Steiner. 'Shying away from a major agreement in Copenhagen is probably unforgivable,' he said.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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