Scientists underestimate global warming risks

Robert Matau




Top climate scientists have found that climate change is happening faster in the world than they had predicted.
The United States Geological Survey report predicts that by the year 2100, the sea level would rise an extra 1.2 metres and temperatures would increase more than they had earlier predicted.
According to the new report, the world will “face the possibility of a much more rapid climate change than previous studies had suggested.”
The new report, commissioned by the US Climate Change Science Programme, found that in light of the recent ice sheet melting, global sea levels could rise by as much as four feet (1.2 metres) by 2100.
The IPCC (UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change) had projected a rise of no more than 1.5 feet by that time, but satellite data over the last two years show the world’s major ice sheets are melting much more rapidly than previously thought.
The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are losing an average of 48 cubic miles of ice a year, equivalent to twice the amount of ice in the Alps.
Even Lord Stern, the British economist who produced the single most influential political document on climate change in 2006, admits he under-estimated the risks of global warming and the damage that could result from it.
The situation is worse now than when he completed his review, he told a conference in Copenhagen on March 13.
“Do politicians understand just how difficult it could be, just how devastating rises of 4, 5 or 6 degrees (C) could be? I think, not yet,” Lord Stern posed the question to the meeting of scientists.
His 700-page report was commissioned by Gordon Brown when Chancellor, and issued in October 2006, on the Economics of Climate Change.
It has been closely studied by governments of every major country.
The report said the costs of acting to counter climate change, by stabilising emissions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, might be about one percent of the annual global Gross Domestic Product by 2050.
But the cost of doing nothing was found to be far greater—risking up to 20 percent of the world’s wealth.
Lord Stern now says the cost of inaction would be “50 percent or higher” than his previous highest estimate—meaning it could cost a third of the world’s wealth.
In Fiji, University of the South Pacific’s Professor Patrick Nunn predicted late last year that by the year 2027 the towns of Nadi, Labasa and Navua will need to be relocated.
More alarming is the fact that in these townships even at municipal level they may not have the expertise nor the money to carry out the relocation, as Nunn had suggested.
He based his 2008 predictions on the findings that between 1990 and 2100, temperatures globally would rise 1.4 iC and 6.4 iC which will relate to the rise in sea level.
Nunn is a professor in Ocean Geoscience at USP and is the only Pacific islands based member of the United Nations Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Lord Stern had predicted in his 2006 report that global temperatures would rise by between 2-3 degrees (C) over the current century if nothing was done to counter global warming.
But in March this year Stern said 4, 5, 6 and even 7 degrees (C) rises were a real possibility by the end of the 21st century.
Meanwhile Pacific island nations want the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to look at establishing a special climate fund to help them finance climate adaptation projects.
Speaking on behalf of Pacific Developing Member Countries (PDMC), Papua New Guinea’s finance minister Patrick Pruaitch, told the bank’s board of governors meeting that climate change poses significant threats to their islands.
Even now, the frequency and intensity of natural disasters is increasing in the Pacific islands nations, he said.
“We propose that the bank considers the establishment of a Regional Climate Change Fund that supports programmes and projects that aim to strengthen adaptation measures that PDMCs have prioritised,” Pruaitch said.
ADB’s Pacific Department said climate change is in ADB’s priority agenda and it was actively engaging with their Pacific Developing Member Countries on a number of aspects of climate change that will combine adaptation and resiliency projects with disaster management and preparedness, and capacity and awareness building, among others.
“We have created a Pacific Climate Change Team within the Pacific Regional Department to work with the Pacific Developing Member Countries and provide implementation support to climate change projects in the coming years,” the department said.
“In addition, we will also promote climate change adaptation benefits within natural resources management projects.
“An example of this is strengthening coastal and marine resources management in the Pacific Coral Triangle being designed for five countries, namely Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Timor Leste, Fiji and Vanuatu.”
The PDMCs are: the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Timor Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Palau.