A recent report of the United Nation's Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on global warming has created stir in the minds of people throughout the GLOBE ! Much controversy has been generated throughout the world ,subsequent to the release of the report of the IPCC recently The IPCC report underscores that there are still significant uncertainties around climate science, including the role of understudied oceans, which have been absorbing much of the excess heat generated by global warming; the effect of warming on the animals and plants that live on this planet, including us; and perhaps most importantly, the 'actual level of warming we will experience as emissions continue to pile up in the atmosphere".It will be not out of mention here that the report says that scientists are certain that in term of percentage 95 pc "humans are the dominant cause"of global warming since the 1950s. There are physical evidence behind climate change as on the ground, in the air, in the oceans, "global warming is unequivocal" Increase and pause in the warming over the past 15 years is too short to reflect long-trend trends. The continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all aspects of the climate system. Projected temperature increases under two scenarios and average rise in surface temperature by 2081-2100: Lowest Scenario-RCP 2.6 and highest scenario-RCP-8.5. Projection is based on assumption about how much green house gases might be released..
After a week of intense negotiations in the Swedish capital on physical science of global warming, the IPCC released 36-page document, which is considered the most comprehensive statement on our understanding of the mechanics of a warming planet. It all started badly since the 1950s, and many of us observing changes in the climate system, which are "unprecedented over decades to millennia". Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth's surface and warmer than any period since 1850 and probably warmer than any time in the past 1400 years. My recent essays- PLUNDERING OF NATURE BOUND TO HAVE ADVERSE EFFECT IN THE GLOBE:-SEPTEMBER 20, 2013; THREAT TO LIFE ON THE EARTH VIS-A-VIS THE EARTH ITSELF THREATENED-JULY 06, 2013; UTTARAKHAND TRAGEDY DUE TO NATURE'S FURY-ULTIMATELY MAN-MADE TRAGEDY- JULY 03, 2013; DANGEROUS SIGNAL FOR NEPAL BECAUSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN HIMALAYAS: INDIA IS ALSO THREATENED and much more on www.kksingh1.blogspot.com amply substantiated the danger signal in respect of global warming and its repercussions on the EARTH !
PLANET UNDER THREAT:-While releasing the report UN'S IPCC , a co-chair, Prof Thomas Stocker, said that climate change "challenges the two primary resources of humans and ecosystems, land and water, In short, it threatens our planet, our only home" Another co-chair of the IPCC working group one, who produced the report, Qin Dahe said, " our assessment of science finds that the atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amount of snow and ice has diminished, the global mean sea level risen and that concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased." Rajendra Pachauri was of the opinion confidently the report would convince the public on the global climate change. The IPCC, which is offspring of two UN bodies-the World Meteorological Organisation and the United Nations Environment Programme, has so far issued four strong-worded reports about the assessment of the climate condition on the Earth. These are commissioned by the governments of 195 countries of the world. The reports are critical in informing the climate policies adopted by these governments. The IPCC itself a small organisation, being run from Geneva, with only 12 full-time staff and all the scientists, who are involved with IPCC for doing scientific study on climate change, do so on voluntary basis.
It is almost man-made climate change. The scientific case for taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for the effects of climate change remains clear, despite nagging doubts about the fact that global temperatures have risen more slowly in recent years despite continued increase in carbon emissions. More over the report has brought important facts to the fore by pointing out that exactly what and how much action should be taken and how politicians should balance tomorrow's threat of climate change against any number of present day challenges, is some thing that would not be answered by another thick sheaf of scientific reports. Notably, IPCC report has formally endorsed a "carbon budget"-a red line for the amount of carbon dioxide created chiefly by burning fossils fuels and through deforestation, that can be emitted without warming increasing beyond an internationally agreed target of 3.6 F (2C). Think of it as a speed limit for the global economy-emit more than one trillion tons of carbon and we will likely to be in red. That should be worrying, given the fact that the are three trillion tons of carbon left on the ground as Bryan Walsh writes in the Time and adds, , "energy companies are developing new technologies like hydrofracking and directional drilling, that are enabling them to find fossil fuels that were long considered uneconomical" An Oxford University researcher and one of the authors of the IPCC report Myles Allen.had spoken to New York Times, saying that limiting the warming to the agreed upon target is "technically doable, but at the moment we are not going in the right direction". Dr Allen said in an interview, "I do not think we will do it unless we bite the bullet and start talking about what we are going to do with extra carbon that we cannot affcord to dump into atmosphere."
CARBON EMISSION:-Notably, The U N Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is doing some think remarkable to contain extra carbon. Optimistically, many governments are doing more about their carbon emissions: Europe has long been a leader and in the US the Environmental Protection Agency just announced a new draft regulations that would make it all but impossible to build new coal plants without expensive carbon-capture technology. China, the world's biggest carbon emitter, is beginning to realise that it cannot simply keep burning carbon- heavy coal for ever- about more because of the local pollution it causes then out of fears of climate change. but truth is different, the globe countries are no where close to a path that would have the world essentially stop emitting carbon by about mid-century. No body , in realty, actually knows what exactly will happen if global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide exceed 450 parts per million. Higher emissions mean higher temperatures and greater climate risk. Lower emissions means less.But one thing that appears to be virtual certainty is that emissions, which are rising faster than ever, are likely to go well past 450. The United Nations still hews to the conceit that we must stabilise global emissions below 450 ppm by 2050. But the reality is that world is on track to blow thresh-hold decade earlier.The IPCC report addresses the warming "hiatus" as it has been called, raising a number of possible explanations-the ocean absorbing the warmth, changes in the solar cycle, volcanic eruptions that causes cooling-without pointing the finger at a single one. Although scientists keep working on those question and others, the ball is in the politicians' court now-as it has been for years. Which means, really,, that it is up to us !
But the so called pause in the increase in temperatures in the period since 1998 has been downplayed in the report. Scientists have described that the period began with a very hot EI Nino year." Trends based on short records are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates do not in general reflect long-term climate trends," the report says. Thomas Stoker, added, I am afraid there is not a lot of public literature that allows us to delve deeper at the required depth of this emerging scientific question-for example, there are sufficient observations of the uptake of heat, particularly into deep ocean, that would be one of the possible mechanisms to explain this warming hiatus."
CLIMATE SENSITIVITY:- The report, however, does alter a key figure from 2007 study. The temperature range given for doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, called equilibrium climate sensitivity, was 2.OC to 4.5C in that report. In the latest document, the range has been changed to 1.5C to 4.5C. The scientists say this reflects improved understanding, better temperature records and new estimates for the factors driving up temperatures. In the summary of policy makers, the scientists say that sea level rise will proceed at a faster rate than "we have experienced over the past 40 years". Waters are expected to rise, the document says, by between 26cm (at a low end) and 82cm (at the high end, depending on greenhouse emissions path this century. Scientists further say ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for 90 percent of energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010. For the future, the report states that warming is projected to continue under all scenario. Model solutions indicate that global surface temperature change by the end of the 21st century is likely to exceed 1.5 degree Celsius, relative to 1980. Prof Sir Brian Hoskins , from Imperial College London told BBC news:" we are performing a very dangerous experiments with our planet and I do not want my grand children to suffer the consequences of that experiment."
Twenty-five years of efforts to cap and reduce global emission have utterly failed. Two decades of heavy subsidies for renewable energy have not had any measurable success moving the needle on emissions or clean energy-thus we will be living on a hotter planet. How much hotter depends on what we do now ! The only countries in the world that have moved to zero-carbon energy at the rapid pace that would be required to keep emissions close to 450ppm are FRANCE AND SWEDEN. To some extent USA and UK in 1990s have also achieved significant emissions reduction by switching from coal to gas. In deed since 1950, natural gas and nuclear re vented 36 times more carbon emissions than wind , solar and geothermal combined. Nuclear avoided the creation of 28 billion tons of carbon dioxide, natural gas 26 billion and geothermal, wind and solar just 1.5 billion.. Surprisingly many of the scientists , conservative writers on energy and the environment,including Steve Hayward, formerly of American Enterprise Institute and Robert Bryce of Manhattan Institute are advocating nuclear energy even today despite many dangerous signals from the nuclear energy, mainly in Japan and other places of the world. Need of the hour for great powers like USA and China must step up efforts to develop safe natural gas and next generation nuclear technologies.
WORSE CONSEQUENCES ON CHILDREN:-Under such situation of alarming rise in global temperature as well as dangerous implication on environment, children of the world will bear the immediate consequences in the impact of climate change. because of their increased risk of heath problems , malnutrition and migration, according to a new study. Food prices are likely to soar as a result of warming, undoing the progress made in combating world hunger.Climate change, almost caused by human actions and that it will lead to a global temperature rise likely to top 2C with related effects including the shrinking of the Arctic ice cap and glaciers, a rise in sea level by nearly one meter by the end of this century and more extreme rainfall in the parts of the globe. UNICEF argues children are most vulnerable to the effects of global warming. UNICEF UK executive director David Bull says in anguish, " we are hurtling towards a future where gains being made for the world's children are threatened and their health, well being, livelihood and survival are compromised.....despite being the least responsible for the causes...we need to listen to them." UNICEF points out children born last year will come of age in 2030 by which time the effect of climate change in the form of an increase in droughts, floods and storms are likely to be more in evidence in the ten most vulnerable countries including THE INDIA, THE BANGLADESH, THE PHILLIP INES where there are 620 million children under 18. UNICEF estimates that 25 million more children will suffer malnourishment because of climate change, with a further 100 million suffering food insecurity where they and their families are on verge of running out. Children among the 150-200 million people estimated to have flee their homes because of climate change will suffer more than adults because of their relatives lack of resources and higher vulnerability to disease. In heat waves likely to grow more intense and frequent under climate change, babies and small children are more likely to die and suffer heatstroke because they find it difficult to regulate their body heat.
ABNORMAL RISE IN FOOD PRICES:-Like wise a report of Oxfam says that global warming would cause rapid rise in food price, causing severe consequences in poor countries. Disputing the IPCC report, Oxfam listed recent examples of extreme weather condition that have caused food shortage and increased prices, quoting scientific estimates that these are likely to increase in number of warming countries. " Today one person in eight goes to bed hungry. Analysis suggest that the number of people at risk of hunger is projected to increase by 10-20 percent by 2050 as a result of climate change," the Oxfam study found. Tim Gore of Oxfam said, " we want a world in which everyone enjoys the right to affordable and nutritious food and we cannot allow climate change to throw us off course. Leaders listening to the latest findings from climate scientists this week must remember that a hot world is a hungry world. They must take urgent action to s;lash emissions and direct more resources to building a sustainable food system."
SPECIES LIKE BIRDS,REPTILES, MAMMALS THREATENED:-Australia is expected to experience a 6C average temperature rise on its hottest days, resulting into deaths of reptiles, birds and mammal species as well as the renowned wetlands of Kakadu by the end of the century, the IPCC report says. IPCC figures show Australia will experience an average overall increase of 2C by 2065, with the figure slightly lower at the coast. Beyond that temperature is expected to rise another 3C-$c by 2100.The number of days that do not fall below 20c is projected to rise to 100 a year, with most of the warmer days in the north and on the east coast. Rainfall patterns are set to change, with annual precipitation, humidity and cloud cover predicted to decrease over most of the Australia but for north of Australia and many agriculture areas, rainfall is predicted to get heavier. Soil moisture will decrease, mostly in the south of the country Australia will witness more and more deaths because of heatwaves. A 2C-4C rise in average temperatures will wipe out 21 to 36 percent of Australia's butterflies while the loss of nearly half of appropriate habitat of Queensland will spell doom for 7to 14 percent reptiles, 8 to 18 percent of frogs, one in ten birds and 10 to 15 percent of mammals.
REFERENCES: WEBSITES OF UNO's IPCC, THE BBC,THE NY TIMES, THE GUARDIAN, TIME WEEKLY, UNICEF
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