WWF & United Nations Climate Change Conference 2008
Poznań, Poland, is hosting the UN Climate Change Conference this year. This venue happens to be only about a 100 miles north of where I currently reside, and some of the readers of this blog actually do live in Poznań (well at least while they’re there for medical school). In any case the reason why I’m bringing all this up is a new study by WWF. Basically it says that if the global temperature rises by 2 degrees the Arctic and Greenland ice covers will melt. That in turn will result in a sea level rise of possibly more than 10 meters. I leave the results of this scenario up to your imagination. Here is the WWF article:
“Sea levels set to rise faster than expected”
Geneva, Switzerland: Even warming of less than 2°C might be enough to trigger the loss of Arctic sea ice and the meltdown of the Greenland Ice Sheet, causing global sea levels to rise by several meters.
Ahead of next week’s meeting of governments in Poznan, Poland, for UN climate talks, WWF analysis of the latest climate science comes to the dire conclusion that humanity is approaching the last chance to keep global warming below the danger threshold of 2°C.
”The latest science confirms that we are now seeing devastating consequences of warming that were not expected to hit for decades,” said Kim Carstensen, WWF Global Climate Initiative leader.
“The early meltdown of ice in the Arctic and Greenland may soon prompt further dangerous climate feedbacks, accelerating warming faster and stronger than forecast.
“Responsible politicians cannot dare to waste another second on delaying tactics in the face of these urgent warnings from nature.
“The planet is now facing a new quality of change, increasingly difficult to adapt to and soon impossible to reverse.
“Governments in Poznan must agree to peak and decline global emissions well before 2020 to give people reasonable hope that global warming can still be kept within limits that prevent the worst.
“In addition to constructive discussions in Poznan we need to see signals for immediate action.”
The CO2 storage capacity of oceans and land surface – the Earth’s natural sinks – has been decreasing by 5 per cent over the last 50 years. At the same time, manmade CO2 emissions from fossil fuels have been increasing – four times faster in this decade than in the previous decade.
WWF is urging governments to use the Poznan talks for an immediate U-turn away from the fatal direction the world is heading in.
“We are at the point where our climate system is starting to spin out of control,” said Carstensen. “A single year is left to agree a new global treaty that can protect the climate, but the UN talks next year in Copenhagen can only deliver this treaty if the meeting in Poznan this year develops a strong negotiation text.”
source: WWF
download the report here: [Pdf, 669 KB]
Link to article: http://www.kuffodog.com/blog/?p=60
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3 comments:
Thursday I was at a conference about climate change in Rotterdam. Ken Livingstone wast there.
He said there is a 7% chance the temperature will not rise more than 2 degrees and 40% that it will not rise by 4 degrees by 2050..
Jim Hansen was there as well. He was trying to make people understand that we have to go back to 350ppm CO2 (he didn't say CO2-eq but he noticed that CH4, NxO, ozone etc. have to go down as well).
Prof. Hansen had an appointment with our parlement in The Hague so left early. I really wanted to ask him some questions so waited for him on his way out.
When I asked him about the fast rising levels methane and the methane clathrates in the arctic and the aerosols that could be hiding 2.2 degrees of warming he didn't look happy while answering that it is indeed very difficult and the future is uncertain.
Leon, thank you so much for leaving this comment and the information contained in it. Dr. Hansen well knows that we are toast. But, like the rest of us, he still has a modicum of hope that by some miracle we can turn this thing around and save the planet -- at least in some form that will be viable for our descendants. If you read his articles closely and carefully, you will see this expressed; however, in public, he can't say this, exactly.
The most recent attempts to include estimates of the CO2, in soils, in climate modelling simulations have been giving even more dire results.
So, let us look another way at Livingstone's percentages -- 93% chance of a 2 C rise by 2050 (not 2100), and a 60% chance of a 4 C rise by 2050.
I would also venture to guess that we need to go down to 280 ppm, but it is not politic to use that number, yet, instead of 350 ppm.
Whatever happened to "delta hoge dijken" in The Netherlands? What is the correct height going to be?
What about your neighbours? Don't they have to raise their dykes, too?
I mean, Holland is going to be in big big trouble.
What is the Dutch government doing about this?
You know, my daughter has a Dutch passport because her father is Dutch and she was born in Amsterdam (you can see photos of her on my flickr). I would like her to have the possibility to live there in the future.
Our government is thinking about investing 1 billion a year to protect the country. For example the delta comity has suggested to raise the level of the Ijsselmeer (which is the biggest sweet water lake in Europe) with 1,5 meter.. Ken Livingstone thinks all will be in vain and we should better get started to move more into the mainland.
He used London as an example by saying that if the Thames barrier wasn't build (they finished it just in time) London wouldn't be an big economical capital anymore. the metro system would be full of water and so on.
I think one of the best places to go and start a family these days is Nepal; No risk from the rising sea-level and if it gets warmer you can always move higher up the mountain.
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