THE CLIMATE CONVENTION
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
has pooled the work of hundreds of scientists. Its first report,
which appeared in 1990, helped persuade 150 nations to sign a
Climate Convention at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. The panel
maintains that if CO2 is doubled, the amplifier effect could produce
a total warming of 2.5°C. A few maverick dissenting voices
can be heard. But, says IPCC science chairman Sir John Houghton,
former head of Britain's Meteorological Office, "Scientifically,
the quality of their work is pathetic."
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Warming on this scale would have major effects. As ice melts,
sea levels will rise, flooding low lying land, perhaps obliterating
entire nations in the Pacific Ocean. As the atmosphere's energy
balance changes, there could be dramatic changes in the weather
in some parts of the world, causing massive fluctuations in temperature
and rainfall, and greatly altering crop growing seasons.
Climate models suggest that many deserts will spread. North African
sands will invade the Mediterranean; the dust bowl will return
to the American Midwest. Were the 1980s drought victims of Ethiopia
and Sudan greenhouse victims? Nobody knows, but these are the
kinds of things that scientists warn will happen if the world
continues to warm up.
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NGOs like WWF campaign to alert people and governments to the dangers of climate change
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The Rio Climate Convention calls on industrialized nations to
return their greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the
year 2000. Beyond that, it declares as the "ultimate objective...
the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere
at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference
with the climate system." And that should be done in time
"to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change."
Thus, in theory at least, the convention enshrines the "precautionary
principle" that it is better to be safe than sorry.
Since Rio, talks on the treaty itself, and its interpretation,
have been in the hands of an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee
(INC). In Berlin in March 1995, the INC hands over to the first
formal meeting of the states that have ratified the convention.
The meeting will face some hard questions left unanswered in the
convention text:
- What happens after the year 2000? Currently, there are no
targets at all past that date.
- Some governments have already observed that the convention
doesn't go far enough. To be effective, how much should greenhouse
gases be cut, and by when?
- Can countries keep on emitting more CO2, providing they plant
trees to absorb the gas from the air?
- At what level should the world ultimately aim to stabilize
greenhouse gases in the air?
The one certainty that the parties to the Climate Convention face
is that the commitments made in it fall a long way short of its
declared aims. According to Houghton, "If we stabilize emissions
at current levels, concentrations of greenhouse gases will carry
on rising in the air for several hundred years. That is clearly
not acceptable."
According to the IPCC, to stabilize concentrations of the gases
in the air at current levels, we must immediately cut CO2 emissions
by 60 per cent.
A middle way might prevent economic instability and climatic chaos.
It would require major progressive cuts in emissions after the
year 2000. The World Energy Council says that, with the most ambitiously
"green" energy scenario, concentrations would still
rise by another 20 per cent and not fall back until around the
middle of the next century. Is that good enough?
The convention requires all nations to measure both their emissions
of greenhouse gases and socalled "sinks", such as forests,
that absorb the gases. And they must devise national plans to
meet the convention's aims. Those plans could include measures
such as:
- Investment in energy efficiency and in climate friendly energy,
for example solar and wind power.
- Changes in transport policies to discourage cars, to encourage
public transport
- Some system of carbon taxes, to reflect the damage caused
by CO2 emissions and to encourage reductions in those emissions.
- Education of consumers about how to change their lifestyles
to cut their personal contribution to the greenhouse effect.
NGOS AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Global warming threatens so many aspects of our environment that
all but the most specialist green campaigning groups have made
it part of their work. Wildlife organizations know that climate
change could overwhelm all their activities, while transport campaigners
have found a new focus.
To help coordinate these activities, and to improve the knowledge
of smaller groups, the larger campaigning organizations, such
as WWF, have established and help fund the Climate Action Network.
The network also tracks the activities of energy industry lobbyists
in their increasing efforts to undermine the scientific claims
about the greenhouse effect.
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