A matter of degrees
No commentsOver the last year, almost everyone has been warned that if global warming exceeds 2C we might enter on an unknown and dangerous path. That is quite scary: it is in fact based on data that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has summarized in its Fourth Assessment Report. The 2C target even became a torch for negotiators at last year’s UN climate summit in Bali, when the roots for a new climate agreement were planted.
But now, in the corridors of Poznan, the Polish city where the United Nations climate summit is approaching its end, things seems to be changing, at least from the point of view of some scientists. The 2C target might not be enough, they say.
Professor Martin Parry, of the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, who co-chaired the IPCC’s working group on climate change impacts, has been circulating a scientific paper at the conference, warning about the risks of inaction. Called “The consequences of delayed action on climate change”, his paper says that proposals on reducing carbon emissions are extremely modest, threatening grave damage to both humans and natural systems.
We should be thinking about something like 1.5C or even less as the maximum increase to be allowed, Professor Parry told journalists. This is even more evident, he says, since recent science has demonstrated that the IPCC´s data was very conservative in some areas. Oceans for example are becoming acid much faster than was predicted before, and thus losing their capacity to absorb carbon.
The meeting in Poznan was also the moment for experts from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research to release studies suggesting the 2C threshold may not be too comfortable. Dr Bill Hare presented new data about the melting of Greenland’s and Antartica’s ice sheets. His message was that the impacts of the present warming may be greater than previously imagined. This is specially true for Greenland, where a 1.5C rise in average global temperature could cause the total melting of its ice sheet. So far, the IPCC says that the planet has warmed by 0.6C.
Professor Parry suspects that 2008 was the first time the world faced a concrete crisis caused by global warming. This was the food crisis, when the drought in Australia led to a drop of 15% in the global wheat trade. Such a considerable impact should cause politicians, now negotiating under the UN Climate Change Convention, to think about funds for coping with damage, he said. “I cannot understand why there is an adaptation fund and a mitigation fund, but not a damage fund”, he said.
Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, who is also attending the UN talks in Poznan, has been softer in presenting new data about the threats of climate change. “Quite frankly, we cannot affirm that”, he said when asked about the new warnings on the possible pace of melting in Greenland.
The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report is already sufficiently clear to awaken politicians’ “risk-adverse” behaviour, Dr Pachauri said. But he stressed that the IPCC has never suggested or set targets such as the 2C figure. It was the European Union who introduced that, he explained.
