Paris – Global warming is happening now and it will continue for centuries no matter what we do. It could be devastating. But don’t give up hope.
Got that? That’s the complex message that scientists are trying to get across after today’s release of a landmark climate report by the world’s leading experts and government officials.
It’s a balancing act. Scientists are trying to warn about dire consequences, but not scare people into throwing up their hands and doing nothing – a reaction that would only guarantee the worst scenarios would come true.
What’s the worst? Maybe more than 1 million dead and hundreds of billions of dollars in costs by 2100, in a world adapting to more extreme weather such as droughts, hurricanes, and wildfires, said Kevin Trenberth. He’s one of the many co-authors of the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
And if nothing is done soon to curb greenhouse gas emissions, experts say, by 2100 the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet would become inevitable. Over the following centuries, the world’s seas would rise by more than 20 feet.
“If you’re in Florida or Louisiana, or much of western Europe or southeast Asia or Bangladesh … or Manhattan … you don’t want that,” said Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria in Canada.
But can the worst be headed off? “It’s not too late” if greenhouse gas emissions are curbed quickly, said Australian scientist Nathaniel Bindoff, another co-author.
But “it’s later than we think,” said panel co-chair Susan Solomon, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist.
It’s close to too late to alter the future for her children – but maybe it’s not too late for her grandchildren, she said.
The report was the first of four to be released this year by the panel, which was created by the United Nations in 1988. It found: -Global warming is “very likely” caused by man, meaning more than 90 percent certain. That’s the strongest expression of certainty to date from the panel.
-If nothing is done to change current emissions patterns of greenhouse gases, global temperature could increase as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.
-But if the world does get greenhouse gas emissions under control – something scientists say they hope can be done – the best estimate is about 3 degrees Fahrenheit.
-Sea levels are projected to rise 7 to 23 inches by the end of the century. Add another 4 to 8 inches if recent, surprising melting of polar ice sheets continues.
The report said no matter how much civilization slows or reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and sea level rise will continue on for centuries.
“This is just not something you can stop. We’re just going to have to live with it,” said Trenberth, director of climate analysis for the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. “We’re creating a different planet. If you were to come up back in 100 years time, we’ll have a different climate.” The report spurred bleak reactions from world leaders.
“We are on the historic threshold of the irreversible,” warned French President Jacques Chirac, who called for an economic and political “revolution” to save the planet.
“While climate changes run like a rabbit, world politics move like a snail: Either we accelerate or we risk a disaster,” said Italy’s environment minister, Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio.
And South Africa’s Environmental Affairs Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said failure to act would be “indefensible.” In Washington, Bush administration officials praised the report but said they still oppose mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The problem can be addressed by better technology that will cut emissions, promote energy conservation, and hasten development of non-fossil fuels, said Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.
About three-fourths of Americans say they expect global warming will get worse, according to a recent AP-AOL News poll. However, other recent polls have found they don’t consider it a top priority for the U.S. government.
But doing nothing about global warming could mean up to a 10-degree Fahrenheit temperature rise by the end of the century in the United States, said report co-author Jonathan Overpeck at the University of Arizona.
Elsewhere, the projected effects of global warming would vary on different parts of the globe.
Temperatures would spike higher near the poles, according to the report. Within 22 years – whether greenhouse gases are controlled or not – most of the Northern Hemisphere will see more high temperature extremes, the report showed. Places like Northern Africa will get even less rainfall.
People experience the harshest effects of global warming through extreme weather – heat waves, droughts, floods, and hurricanes – said study co-author Philip Jones of Britain’s University of East Anglia. Those have increased significantly in the past decade and will get even worse in the future, he said.
Given all the dire predictions, why are scientists nearly all optimistic? They think their message is finally getting through to the people in charge.
United Nations environmental leaders are talking about a global summit on climate change for world leaders and they hope President Bush will attend.
“The signal that we received from the science is crystal clear,” said Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a multinational body that tries to change policy to fight global warming.
“That makes it imperative that the political response that comes from this crystal-clear science is as crystal-clear as well.
“I sense a growing sense of urgency to come to grips with the issue,” de Boer said. “I think the major challenge is to further the negotiating agenda in a way that makes major players feel safe to step forwardly on this issue.” The major player that has at times been absent is the United States, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
“The world cannot solve the climate change problem without the United States,” Achim Steiner, who heads the UN Environment Program, told The Associated Press.
“The world is looking to the Bush administration and to the United States and how it has to be a key part” of solving global warming, he said.
De Boer was optimistic, there too. In an interview, he said that despite U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increasing 16 percent since 1990, change is afoot.
Citing congressional interest and carbon dioxide emission limits requested by top industry CEOs, de Boer said: “I see a very important momentum building throughout the country.”
