Climate change report: IPCC finds governments unprepared - live blog
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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change prepares to release a
comprehensive update its climate change report. Earlier drafts revealed
the threat of climate change is no longer distant.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change prepares to release a
comprehensive update its climate change report. Earlier drafts revealed
the threat of climate change is no longer distant.
an aerial view from a Pakistan army rescue helicopter of residents in a
flood-affected area on the outskirts of Sukkur. UN scientists are set to
deliver their darkest report yet on the impacts of climate change,
pointing to a future stalked by floods, drought, conflict and economic
damage if carbon emissions go untamed, during the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Yokohama beginning today. Photograph:
ASIF HASSAN/AFP/Getty Images
Cost comparison
From Suzanne Goldenberg:
We just
got to one of the really tricky sections of the report - how much will
climate change hurt the bottom line? This is one area where there really
isn't much hard data, because of a lack of reliability in economic
models.
One number that is out in the report is that climate
change will shave between .2 and 2% of global income, if warming remains
at about 2C.
That is far lower than other economists say, and it opens up the question just now: why bother to cut greenhouse gas emissions at all if that's the limit of the cost?
Chris
Field said those reports don't take into account the full range of
impacts, or plan for what might happen with catastrophic climate events,
such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
"We certainly
wouldn't anyone to come away from this report doing a simple comparative
analysis comparing mitigation with the costs of adaptation," Field
said.
For those who want to read the summary of the report for themselves, it has now been published online here. The full report will be released at a later date.
Some assistance from my colleague Suzanne Goldenberg who is at the press conference in Yokohama.
For the uninitiated, there are two buzz words that you are going to hear a lot of just now - mitigation and adaptation.
Mitigation are the actions that governments take to reduce the emissions that cause climate change.
Adaptation is how societies protect themselves from climate change
- like building sea walls as protection from sea level rise, early
warning systems for more lead time on extreme weather events.
One of the underlining messages of this report, however, was that you have to have both.
With
temperatures now projected to rise beyond 2 degrees C, nobody will be
safe from climate change no matter how many sea walls get built, or how
many cooling centres are installed to shelter people from heat waves.
On
the other hand, even if you greenhouse gas emissions to zero today -
which obviously isn't going to happen - there is still enough climate
change locked into the system that a lot of the bad stuff the report has
warned about - heat waves, drought, wildfires, and food shortages - is
still coming our way.
WWF Australia has called the report a "wake up call" to prime minister Tony Abbott.
"This
latest IPCC report ramps up the urgency for the Government to put in
place a credible plan to protect Australia from climate change impacts.
“That includes stronger pollution reduction targets and a price and limit on pollution to achieve those targets."
From
Greenpeace: "Let’s not get distracted by limited economic models or be
blinded by global GDP. What value can you put on the lives of 8,000
people left dead or missing by typhoon Haiyan? Or what is the cost of
the trauma of children being torn from their mother's arms due to storm
surges? That is the true cost of climate change that should define the
urgency of the action we take," said Amalie Obusan, Greenpeace Southeast
Asia campaigner based in the Philippines.
Climate change is going to intensify the impact of poverty, said Opondo.
People
are already marginalised. "In the urban areas the poor are going to be
harder hit. Africa has lots of slums, and in the slum areas there are
not the proper facilities."
Add in climate change and its effects, and people living in poverty become even more vulnerable, she said.
Pachauri
has thanked Opondo for her answer but added that regional poor people
are also affected because many are in a situation of subsistence living,
and those near the coast face the impact of rising sea levels.
Essentially,
it's an expansion on one of the main themes of this report - the poorer
people in the world are begin hit the hardest by the effects of climate
change, whether they live urban or rurally.
We'll have a full report on the press conference for you later
today. In the meantime governments, environmental groups, and charities
are already weighing in.
Science advisor to the White House John Holdren has released a statement in response to the IPCC report. Below is a snippet:
The
IPCC’s new report underscores the need for immediate action in order to
avoid the most severe impacts of climate change. It reflects
scientists’ increased confidence that the kinds of harm already being
experienced as a result of climate change are likely to worsen as the
world continues to warm.
The report highlights the widespread and
substantial observed impacts of climate change, and its growing adverse
effects on livelihoods, ecosystems, economies, and human health.
Importantly, it also concludes that effective adaptation measures can
help build a more resilient global society in the near term and beyond.
The press conference has now ended, but there will be an hour of
questions for the panel. In the meantime here are some comprehensive
reports from my Guardian colleagues:
The poor will suffer most, writes Suzanne Goldenberg.
Pensioners
left on their own during a heatwave in industrialised countries. Single
mothers in rural areas. Workers who spend most of their days outdoors.
Slum dwellers in the megacities of the developing world. These are some
of the vulnerable groups who will feel the brunt of climate change as its effects become more pronounced in the coming decades.
The report is nothing new, but still dire, writes Graham Readfern
The
latest blockbuster United Nations report on the impacts of climate
change makes dire reading, just as the first one did almost a quarter of
a century ago... Now more than 25 years after scientists started
compiling that first report, the latest report is similarly alarming -
just with added impacts and greater certainty.
Australia's coastal infrastructure is in trouble, writes Oliver Milman
There
is “significant change in community composition and structure of coral
reefs and montane ecosystems and risk of loss of some native species in
Australia” as a result of warming temperatures and ocean acidification.
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