(Photo of retreating Athabasca Glacier from Flickr and photographer Janet.Powell)
Climate is changing faster than forecast just two years ago by the authoritative IPCC, a new UN report revealed last week.
More CO2 is going into the atmosphere, glaciers and ice sheets are melting faster, oceans are getting more acidic, and perennial droughts are more common, the UN Environment Programme update said.
Global temperatures could rise 8 degrees Fahrenheit (above pre-industrial levels), based on pledges by countries so far to cut greenhouse gas emissions – double the temperature scientists in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said would be catastrophic. Some think tipping points will come in a matter of years or decades, rather than in a century, as earlier forecast.
Degree of damage
After assessing the latest peer-reviewed science, the report said:
• CO2 in the atmosphere is growing at 3.5% a year this decade, compared with 1.1% a year in the 1990s.
• At least half of the next 10 years should be warmer than the previous record in 1998.
• Glaciers and sea ice have melted since 2000 at twice the rate of the 1980s and ‘90s.
• Greenland ice in 2007 thawed 60% above the record melt in 1998.
• An ice-free September in the Arctic Ocean could come in 2030, not 2100 as earlier predicted.
• West Antarctica ice loss increased 60% from 1996-2006 and the Antarctic Peninsula thaw was up 140% the same decade. Closing of the ozone hole over Antarctic will likely accelerate warming there.
• Melting land ice and thermal expansion could raise sea levels 6 feet by century’s end, rather than the earlier predicted 1.5 feet.
• Marine ecosystems will turn over 60% by 2050 because of extinctions and invasive species.
Impact on treaty talks
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called the new report a “wake-up call” for countries meeting in Copenhagen in December to try to reach accord on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
"Shying away from a major agreement in Copenhagen will probably be unforgivable, if you look back ... at this moment,” said UNEP executive director Achim Steiner.
Countries still disagree about the amount of GHG emissions industrialized and developing countries should cut and how much rich countries should help fund poor ones for adaptation and low-carbon economic development. Some European countries pledging 20% or more in cuts (below 1990 levels) by 2020 criticize the U.S., which is responsible for the most existing atmospheric CO2, for doing too little. The House-passed climate bill targets a 17% reduction (from 2005 levels) by 2020 (that’s about 4% below 1990) and the Senate is thought to be looking at reducing that number. That’s pretty pathetic.
As UNEP report contributor Robert Correl put it: Emissions are accelerating. “We’re not going in the right direction.”
To download the report go to www.unep.org/compendium2009
(Sources: Dallas Morning News, Washington Post, UNEP.com, AP.)
