Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiClimate Change Juggernaut on the Horizon, UN Talks Told
POZNAN, Poland - War, hunger, poverty and sickness will stalk humanity if the world fails to tackle climate change, a 12-day UN conference on global warming heard on Monday.
![["Roughly 20 to 30 percent species assessed will be at increasingly high risk of extinction," according to the IPCC (AFP photo)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/gorillas1201.jpg "gorillas1201.jpg")
A volley of grim warnings sounded
out at the start of the marathon talks, a step to a new worldwide
treaty to reduce greenhouse gases and help countries exposed to the
wrath of an altered climate.
"Humankind in its activity just reached the limits of the closed system of our planet Earth," said Polish Environment Minister Maciej Nowicki, elected to chair the December 1-12 meeting in the city of Poznan.
"Further expansion in the same style will generate global threats of really great intensity -- huge droughts and floods, cyclones with increasingly more destructive power, pandemics of tropical disease, dramatic decline of biodiversity, increasing ocean levels," said Nowicki.
"All these can cause social and even armed conflict and migration of people at an unprecedented scale."
The forum of the 192-member UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) comes halfway in a two-year process, launched in Bali, Indonesia, that aims at crafting a new pact in Copenhagen in December 2009.
Nowicki's warning was underscored by Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which provides neutral scientific opinion on global warming and its impacts.
"The impacts of climate change, if there is inaction, can be extremely serious," he said.
"We have projected that the number of people living in severely stressed river basins will increase from 1.4 to 1.6 billion in 1995 to 4.3-6.9 billion in 2050. That's almost the majority of humanity.
"Roughly 20 to 30 percent species assessed will be at increasingly high risk of extinction as global temperatures exceed two to three degrees Centigrade (3.6-5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.
"Abrupt and irreversible changes are possible, such as the collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic icesheets," leading to a rise in sea levels measurable in metres, or many feet, he said.
"For Greenland, the temperature threshold for breakdown is estimated at about 1.1 to 3.8 degrees Celsius (2.0-6.8 F) above today's global average level. We're very close to that."
Progress under the so-called Bali Roadmap has been bogged down over demands for concessions and the sheer complexity of a deal.
Rich countries are historically to blame for most of today's warming.
They are lobbying for emerging giant countries, led by China and India, which will be be the big polluters of tomorrow, to do more to tackle their surging emissions.
Developing countries, meanwhile, want the West to help pay for them to expand their economies in a sustainable manner and stump up cash to help vulnerable countries cope with climate change.
Hopes for a breakthrough at Poznan have also been darkened by the global economic crisis.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, prime minister of Denmark, which is tasked with steering the proposed treaty to a conclusion, urged countries not to be deterred and argued that investing in green technology created growth and jobs.
"I feel confident that the financial crisis will be overcome. The recovery will come. However climate change is not going to become less of a problem in the coming years," he said.
UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer warned, though, that the overall needs would be high.
Last week, the UNFCCC published estimates suggesting that, a couple of decades from now, hundreds of billions of dollars would have to be mustered each year, just to reduce emissions to a stable level.
"The reality is that raising financial resources on the scale required will be challenging," de Boer said.
Delegates in Poland will be examining an 82-page document containing a vast range of proposals for action beyond 2012, when emissions-curbing pledges under the Kyoto Protocol run out.
The hope is to condense this labyrinthine document into a workable blueprint for negotiations culminating in a deal in Copenhagen.
One spur for optimism is the change of president in the United States.
Barack Obama has vowed to sweep away George W. Bush's climate policies, which have caused the United States to be isolated in the world environmental arena since 2001.
Obama has set a goal of reducing US emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050, using a cap-and-trade system and a 10-year programme worth 150 billion dollars in renewable energy.
11 Comments so far
Show AllStop importing Palm Oil. That's what's screwing up the Orang habitats.
snydly
Friends......The global Elite already have this well in hand. The financial "meltdown" is aptly named. It and the "bailout" for capital stakeholders is, in my warped opinion, their response to climate change (which is upon us). Unfortunately, they see humanity's best chances for survival as a small group with all the marbles, rather than as 6 billion healthy, informed and enabled team members. Well, you say, that's a very radical statement, how do you come to that conclusion?
Al Gore/IPCC let the cat out of the bag in "An Inconv Truth" by showing the world the IPCC ice core data chart spread across a studio wall screen, and in his book, on a fold-out page that can be studied. It shows (but he didn't say)that we are now at the tipping point of a NATURAL cycle that has occurred neatly three times before like a heart beat of Gaia, but, now, (he does say) humanity has driven several parameters far out of historical norms. Therein lies the cause for concern. Some "forcings" associated with the natural cycle have become evident. If we don't find the will to bring our GHGs, etc, back within norms, and soon, we risk a "forcing of the forcings" which would invite phenomenae that would pretty much wrap it up.
Humans have survived all the previous cycles, albeit with cataclysmic alterations in the status quo...is anyone aware of traces of any type of civilization co-incident with the previous cycles? The most recent traces we have on this side of the last one are 35,000 year old stone knife blades in Australia.
This time, we have satellites to see the weather coming, and lots of technology.
We also have lots of skeptics. But even for "believers" it is hard for the true extent of this to sink in. Even Al stops at describing the likely scenario, and just drops his gaze and shakes his head, mumbling something like, "We don't want to let this get out of hand." on the Oprah Show.
And you thought the Bushies could scare the ever-loving crap outta everybody!
I see no sign that the drastic action necessary will be taken.
I don't even see people hanging their clothes out to dry on a line, or car-pooling.
Maybe we'll get a wakeup call, maybe not.
Check it out for yourself. Read the chart, notice the spikes. Tell us what you see.
What Would Noah Do?
First -- It's a scam to call this "Climate Change" --
It's GLOBAL WARMING which makes clear that "The Heat Is On" --
Second -- war is kept going by profiteers and certainly doesn't benefit
the planet, Nature or Humanity in any way --
Third -- You don't have 20-40 years -- you'll be damned fortunate
if we have a dozen years ---
Fourth -- Nationalize the oil industry and get electric cars on the roads --
Fifth -- Give the PILL to every woman FREE --
Sixth -- Recognize that Capitalism has destroyed the planet and much of
animal-life, Nature. Give it up -- Let it fail.
Let's spend the $8.8 TRILLION creating jobs and move on to Democratic Socialism --
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
As usual, the UN has no clue about a runaway Arctic methane release.
I totally agree PJD. "Reducing the world's population is the best way to reduce greenhouse gases. Why is no one talking about that?" Because it cannot take place rapidly enough in great enough numbers to have any significant effect. So it is NOT the best way, not even close. Energy conservation and renewable energy can be implemented on a large scale RIGHT NOW, and the effect is immediate. Ezeflyer - how do you propose to do this population reduction? Please give numerical targets and timelines.
Reducing the world's population is the best way to reduce greenhouse gases. Why is no one talking about that?
Considering that action must take place on a 10-20 year time frame at the longest, are you proposing some kind of mass killings or something?
And, considering that it is the countries with smaller, stable populations which produce most of the world's greenhouse gases, how direct is the role of populaton anyway?
---USAn---
"Considering that action must take place on a 10-20 year time frame at the longest, are you proposing some kind of mass killings or something?"
I'm proposing birth control. Nature is proposing mass killings.
"And, considering that it is the countries with smaller, stable populations which produce most of the world's greenhouse gases, how direct is the role of populaton anyway?"
Kyoto Protocol:
Global Warming is Inevitable if Rampant
U.S. Population Growth Continues
On December 11, 1997 at Kyoto, the world’s industrial nations pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, in order to promote sustainable development and reduce global warming.
The pact – agreed to by former President Bill Clinton but not ratified by the U.S. Senate – has been abandoned by the Bush administration.
The Kyoto accord will surely fail without U.S. participation.
The United States is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases; with 5% of the world’s population, it accounts for 25% of the world’s total emissions. That number is sure to rise as the U.S. population grows by millions of people each decade.
The demands of the U.S.’s immigration-driven population growth continue to overburden our environment. Fossil fuels required to run automobiles, heat homes and businesses, and power factories are responsible for about 98% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, 24% of methane emissions, and 18% of nitrous oxide emissions. Increased agriculture, deforestation, landfills, industrial production, and mining contribute a significant share of emissions as well. These problems increase as U.S. population grows.
Like every other environmental issue, global warming and subsequent climate changes cannot be resolved until population growth is reversed and stabilized at a sustainable level.
http://www.npg.org/pospapers/kyoto.html
ezeflyer, most Western countries that are the heavy polluters, and China, have fertility rates of less than two. You said it yourself "the U.S.’s immigration-driven population growth" - the rise in US population is due to immigration. Birth control will have no effect of population growth due to immigration. Just how much impact in how much time does your proposal of "birth control" hope to achieve? Give us some timelines, numbers and which populations will be most affected and how much impact removal of those carbon footprints can have.
"Global Warming — It's Not Just a Matter of Numbers
In the 20th century, human population multiplied from 1.6 billion to 6.1 billion people. During this same period of time, CO2 emissions grew twelvefold.3 Population, global warming, and consumption patterns are inextricably linked in their collective global environmental impact.
Industrialized countries' wasteful consumption patterns demonstrate that it is not just the size of a country's population that influences climate change but also the proportion of resources a country consumes. Although the United States makes up only about 5 percent of the world's population, we create approximately 25 percent of the pollution that causes global warming.4
The United States is the biggest global warming polluter, contributing greenhouse gas emissions primarily from transportation, industry and power plant sources. We have built our nation on a foundation of unsustainable fossil fuel dependence, jeopardizing the planet's future.
Fact: If America's autos were a separate country, they would be the world's fifth largest global warming polluter.5
Even in developing countries with high population growth rates, global warming pollution is still far lower than that of developed countries such as the United States. However, the United Nations estimates that developing countries will contribute more than half of total emissions by the mid-21st century. 6 As developing countries' contribution to global emissions grows, population size and growth rates will become significant factors in magnifying the impacts of global warming.
Turning Down the Heat
Reducing the world's heavy reliance on fossil fuels can help us turn down the heat and curb human-induced global warming. We must all work together to advocate for federal policies that reduce our fossil fuel dependence, promote renewable wind and solar energy sources, and encourage individuals to live in ways that have less impact on the planet.
We must also work to slow population growth by increasing access to voluntary family planning and reproductive health programs so that families are better able to choose the number and spacing of their children. The Sierra Club's Global Population and Environment Program supports efforts to empower women and families through education about responsible reproductive health and natural resource use— vital components of the global goal to secure a healthier environmental future."
http://www.sierraclub.org/population/factsheets/pop_and_globalwarming.asp
Here is a federal policy to foster: free public transit.
http://freepublictransit.org