Global warming reaching point-of-no-return
January 24, 2005
Global warming is reaching the point-of-no-return,
with widespread drought, crop failure and water shortages the likely result,
according to a new international report highlighted in the British press.
The countdown to climate-change catastrophe is spelt out by a task force of
senior politicians, business leaders and academics. In 10 years or less, they
predict, the catastrophic point-of-no-return may be reached, The Independent
daily reported.
The new study, "Meeting The Climate Challenge", has been timed to
coincide with British Prime Minister Tony Blair's promised efforts to advance
climate change policy this year as head of both the G8 group of richest nations
and the European Union.
The report was assembled by the Institute for Public Policy Research in Britain,
the Centre for American Progress in the United States and The Australia
Institute.
It says the danger point will be signalled when temperatures rise by two degrees
centigrade above the average world temperature prevailing in 1750, before the
industrial revolution.
But it points out that global average temperature has already risen by 0.8
degrees since then, with more rises already in the pipeline - so the world has
little more than a single degree of temperature latitude before the crucial
point is reached, the paper said.
The consequences of such a rise could include widespread agricultural failure,
water shortages and major droughts, increased disease, sea-level rise and the
death of forests. according to the report.
The researchers calculated the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
after which the two-degree rise will become inevitable, and say it will be 400
parts per million by volume (ppm) of CO2.
The current level is 379ppm, and rising by more than 2ppm annually - so it is
likely that the 400ppm threshold will be crossed in just 10 years' time, the
report adds.
"There is an ecological timebomb ticking away," said Stephen Byers,
former British transport minister and a close Blair ally, who co-chaired the
task force that produced the report with the US Republican senator Olympia Snowe.
The report urges all G8 countries to agree to generate a quarter of their
electricity from renewable sources by 2025, and to double their research
spending on low-carbon energy technologies by 2010.
SOURCE: The Good News