|
Back
To Index Page
CLIMATE
CHANGE & ENVIRONMENT
Doubling the safe limit for global
warming may avoid climate catastrophe
Edinburgh: A new study has suggested
that as a result of unprecedented temperature rise,
the world should be prepared for doubling the safe
limit for global warming to 4 degrees Celsius, to
avoid a potential climate catastrophe. According to
a report in the Scotsman, the study has been done
by scientists at the Tyndall Centre, a leading organistation
for climate change research at the University of Manchester
in the UK. Internationally, it has long been agreed
governments should be aiming to keep a global temperature
rise below 2C, to avoid climate change spiralling
out of control. But, the new study determines that
it is "improbable" that global warming will
be kept below 4C - double the rise considered safe
to avoid climate catastrophe. It warns that carbon
dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere will almost certainly
stabilize at levels of at least 650 parts per million
(ppm), which is roughly equivalent to a four-degree
temperature increase. "Given the reluctance,
at virtually all levels, to openly engage with the
unprecedented scale of both current emissions and
their associated growth rates, even an optimistic
interpretation of the current framing of climate change
implies that stabilisation much below 650ppm is improbable,"
according to the authors of the study paper. The authors
said that even stabilising levels at 650ppm will require
industrialised nations to "begin to make draconian
emission reductions within a decade". They argue
that "planned economic recession" would
be needed to keep climate change at this level, unless
a way can be found for economic growth to go hand
in hand with unprecedented rates of reductions in
carbon emissions. Dr Alice Bows, one of the report
authors, said that the study is "incredibly worrying".
"We are certainly not on track for a two-degree
temperature increase at the moment. We are much more
on track for a three to four-degree temperature increase
and we need to be thinking about what that actually
means," she said. According to the 2006 Stern
review on the economics of climate change, a four-degree
temperature rise could lead to up to 300 million more
people being affected by coastal flooding each year,
a 30 to 50 per cent reduction in water availability
in Southern Africa, and up to 50 per cent of animal
and plant species facing extinction. Dr Richard Dixon,
director of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Scotland, said
that an increase of more than two degrees could mean
a "tipping point" is reached. "That's
when you get to a runaway situation. The big systems
of the world start to go wrong when you get beyond
two degrees," he said.
-Sept
2, 2008
Go
To Top
|
