[NYTr] Env: World faces 'catastrophic' warming

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Toronto Globe & Mail - Dec 5, 2007
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071205.wclimatewarn1205/BNStory/International/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20071205.wclimatewarn1205

World faces 'catastrophic' warming: leading scientists

By MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT

TORONTO — The international community may have as little as a decade to
bring greenhouse gases under control or risk catastrophic global
warming that places millions of people at risk, warns a group of the
world's leading climate scientists.

In a declaration released Thursday in Bali, Indonesia, where
representatives from about 180 countries are attending a United Nations
conference on climate change, the scientists say emissions need to peak
and then start to decline within the next 10 to 15 years as a first
step, and then be cut in half by 2050 from the level prevailing in 1990.

If releases aren't curbed soon, “millions of people will be at risk
from extreme events, such has heat waves, drought, floods, and storms,
our coasts and cities will be threatened by rising sea levels, and many
ecosystems, plants and animal species will be in serious danger of
extinction,” the scientists said in their declaration.

More than 200 leading researchers, including many of the world's
pre-eminent climate scientists and seven from Canada, endorsed the
statement. Its release was timed to put heat on the negotiators at the
Bali climate change talks.

Government officials from the countries have been meeting this week,
but starting next week, with the arrival of ministers and other elected
officials, the pace of the talks is expected to quicken. The leaders
are trying to lay the groundwork for plans to curb greenhouse gas
emissions after the Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of 2012.

The declaration was organized by scientists at the Climate Change
Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney,
Australia.

Dr. Andrew Weaver, a climatologist from the University of Victoria who
signed the declaration, said it was prompted because many scientists
have become alarmed at the precariousness of the world's weather
system, and want to convey a sense of urgency to politicians about the
need to do something to prevent dangerous changes.

Scientists are usually an “argumentative bunch” that “can't even agree
on the time of day,” yet more than 200 agreed to sign the statement,
Dr. Weaver said in an e-mail. “I think it is a testament to the urgency
of dealing with global warming.”

The declaration says emissions need to peak and start falling in the 10
to 15 year time frame to keep global temperatures from rising more than
2 degrees. That is a level beyond which many scientists fear will cause
widespread species extinctions and harm to the massive Greenland ice
sheet, whose melting would lead to extensive flooding in low lying
coastal area of the world.

Temperatures have already risen about 0.7 degrees during the 20th
century due to human activity, according to current estimates.

To hold temperatures to a 2 degree increase, greenhouse gas
concentrations will have to be stabilized at a level “well below” 450
parts per million, if all harmful gases are measured in terms of carbon
dioxide, the declaration said. The current reading is about 430 ppm and
rising by approximately 2 ppm a year.

Biologist John Smol from Queen's University in Kingston and one of the
signatories, said he thinks scientists have done a good job alerting
the public to the threat posed by climate change, but he worries that
political squabbling by countries at the talks may delay action. “There
is no time to dilly-dally around,” he said.