[IP] Stark warning over climate change
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Stark warning over climate change
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 21:59:56 +0000
From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell@xxxxxxxxx>
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Dave:
For IP if you wish.
The BBC web-site is carrying an account of a major new report "
Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change ":
Stark warning over climate change
By Richard Black
Environment Correspondent, BBC News website
Icebergs in Greenland. Image: AP
Climate report conclusions
Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases may have more serious
impacts than previously believed, a major scientific report has said.
The report, published by the UK government, says there is only a
small chance of greenhouse gas emissions being kept below
"dangerous" levels.
It fears the Greenland ice sheet is likely to melt, leading sea
levels to rise by 7m (23ft) over 1,000 years.
The poorest countries will be most vulnerable to these effects, it adds.
The report, Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, collates evidence
presented by scientists at a conference hosted by the UK
Meteorological Office in February 2005.
The conference set two principal objectives: to ask what level of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is too much, and what the options
are for avoiding such a level.
In the report's foreword, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair writes that
"it is now plain that the emission of greenhouse gases... is causing
global warming at a rate that is unsustainable."
Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett said the report's conclusions
would be a shock to many people.
"The thing that is perhaps not so familiar to members of the
public... is this notion that we could come to a tipping point where
change could be irreversible," she told BBC Radio 4's Today
programme.
"We're not talking about it happening over five minutes, of course,
maybe over a thousand years, but it's the irreversibility that I
think brings it home to people."
Vulnerable ecosystems
The report sets out the effects of various levels of temperature increase.
The European Union (EU) has adopted a target of preventing a rise in
global average temperature of more than two degrees Celsius.
But that, according to the report, might be too high, with two
degrees perhaps enough to trigger melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
This would have a major impact on sea levels globally, though it
would take up to 1,000 years to see the full predicted rise of 7m.
Above two degrees, says the report, the risks increase "very
substantially", with "potentially large numbers of extinctions" and
"major increases in hunger and water shortage risks... particularly
in developing countries".
'Without delight'
The report asked scientists to calculate which greenhouse gas
concentrations in the atmosphere would be enough to cause these
"dangerous" temperature increases.
To have a good chance of achieving the EU's two-degree target,
levels should be stabilised at 450ppm or below, the report concludes.
But, speaking on Today, the UK government's chief scientific
adviser, Sir David King, said that was unlikely to happen.
"We're going to be at 400 ppm in 10 years' time, I predict that
without any delight in saying it," he said.
"But no country is going to turn off a power station which is
providing much-desired energy for its population to tackle this
problem - we have to accept that.
"To aim for 450 (ppm) would, I am afraid, seem unfeasible."
. . .
Full story at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4660938.stm
Details of the report's findings at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4661830.stm
The report itself:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/internat/dangerous-cc.htm
Cheers
Brian Randell
--
School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell@xxxxxxxxx PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/
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