Global warming may have “abrupt and irreversible”

Climate change panel gives its final verdict: the future is bleak
Global warming may have “abrupt and irreversible” consequences and could cause the extinction of almost a third of all plant and animal species on the planet, the UN’s climate science panel will say today.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared this year’s Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, the former US Vice-President, will tell world leaders that they have only a decade to curb greenhouse gas emissions and prevent catastrophic warming.
The UN panel of 2,500 scientists is issuing its warning as governments prepare for a crucial climate summit in Bali next month. The report could shape environmental policy for decades.
A short summary for policymakers, to be used at the Bali conference, was agreed at 7am yesterday after all-night negotiations in Valencia. “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” the summary begins.
The agreed text states that human activities “could lead to abrupt or irreversible climate changes and impacts”. The report will note, however, that a range of policies, such as a carbon tax, emissions trading and incentives, could limit CO2 emissions but it does not recommend a particular approach, participants said.
A fuller document was still being agreed line by line last night by more than 140 delegations. The final version will be published this morning at a press conference chaired by Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General.
The report will say: “Approximately 20-30 per cent of plant and animal species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if global average temperatures exceed 1.5C to 2.5 C above 1980-99 levels.”
The “abrupt and irreversible” consequences of global warming could include the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, it will say. Other reasons for concern include melting of the polar ice-caps, widespread coral death, and the threat to indigenous people on small islands and in the Arctic region.
Environmental and science groups said that the report would ensure that the Bali discussions were firmly grounded in the scientific consensus on climate change. The talks are aimed at establishing a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse emissions, which expires in 2012.
The WWF conservation group praised the IPCC’s scientists, who will receive the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10 in the middle of the Bali summit, for resisting pressure from governments seeking to weaken the report.
“The hard fact is we have caused climate change, and it’s also clear that we hold in our hands the solution to stop global warming,” Hans Verolme, a WWF expert on climate change, said. “The IPCC shows that to avoid irreparable harm, nothing less than deep cuts in carbon pollution are needed — the UN Climate Change conference in Bali will be where political leaders must act decisively.”
The IPCC’s “synthesis report” summarises three longer documents that together cover almost 3,000 pages, which predicted that temperatures are likely to rise by up to 4C by the end of the century, causing water shortages, more extreme weather, and the extinction of threatened species.
Today’s document ends a six-year review of the scientific evidence on climate change. The report will underline that predictions made by the panel six years ago are already coming true. But the IPCC has considered only work published up to last year, and so has ignored several alarming recent studies, such as research that suggests that the Southern Ocean and rainforests are soaking up less carbon dioxide than before.
— Government funding for recycling, energy saving, carbon emissions and nature protection is to be slashed by £300 million in emergency cuts, according to reports last night. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs needs to make the savings after unexpected spending on tackling the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

Climate change: Ten ways to save the world.

1 Look to the people
Not revolutionary, but by using energy more efficiently in our homes and offices, and switching to renewable power sources, the biggest climate-savers are likely to be ourselves .

2 Solar surplus
Sunlight energy – the most abundant source of free energy on the planet – is high on the list. With the right technology, there is an endless amount to intercept.

3 Carbon capture

When we find the best;
way to do it, sucking up and storing CO2 from the atmosphere will be key to combating global warming. At present, however, these technologies are hugely energy-intensive .

4 Plant power
Growing plants, such as oil palms, for fuel is dogged by ecological and food-conservation issues. However, second-generation biofuels use agricultural waste to generate energy. Most promising are third-generation biofuels, using algae. Algae farms could convert sunlight into oil
5 Scrubbing emissions
Stopping CO2 reaching the atmosphere means we’ll have a lot less to remove later. Algae farms, once again, could be the solution. By building farms near power stations, emissions can be filtered through algal vats. These remove CO2. The algae can then be harvested for oil or dried to be processed into ethanol .

6 Taming the seas
Hurricanes need warm water to grow. Giant tubes that pump cold water up from the bottom of the sea could ‘tame’ storms by cooling the surface. The pumps could also mix nutrient-rich deep water with the relatively barren ocean surface. This would encourage algae to grow and use up dissolved CO2 in the water.

7 Changing colour
Painting areas white might be an effective way to cool down. This is the opposite of what’s happening in the Arctic, where disappearing ice means more heat is accepted by the planet .

8 A bit of everything
Some scientists argue that we don’t need to develop new technologies; we already have what we need to slow down climate change — wind, solar and nuclear energy, for example. However, to work, these techniques need to be scaled up and implemented immediately .

9 Scale down
The world’s population, currently about 6.6 billion, is growing at unprecedented rates. Experts warn that, as well as technological fixes, stopping the population from reaching nine billion ‘would be jolly helpful.

10 Nuclear fusion
This radioactive-free power source has recently shown promising signs. Experts note that nuclear fusion ‘should not be forgotten’