BELGIUM: Experts meet to approve a report warning about the negative impacts of global warming

The European Union criticises Australia and the United States for hampering international talks on climate change as experts meet to approve a report warning about the negative impacts of global warming .The European Union accused the United States and Australia on Monday (April 2) of hampering international efforts to tackle climate change. Governments' experts on climate change and scientists are set to meet all week at a United Nations-sponsored conference to review a report on the regional effects of rising global temperatures. Scientists and officials from more than 100 countries are reviewing a 21-page summary for policymakers which predicts climate change will cause glaciers in the Himalayas, the world's highest mountain range, to melt away. Efforts to launch negotiations to extend the U.N. Kyoto Protocol on climate change beyond 2012 have floundered as nations resist committing to targets for cutting greenhouse gases. The 27-nation EU agreed last month to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels, challenging industrialised and developing countries to go further with a 30 percent cut which the EU would then match. But so far other nations have not responded to that call, a fact which Dimas blamed largely on U.S. reluctance to cap its own emissions. ''It's obvious that the importance of the United States is paramount because they are emitting one, about one fourth emissions of greenhouse gases and also they have a very high per capita income, and they have contributed historically to the creation of the greenhouse phenomenon more than any other region in the world, with the exception of the European Union countries. So they have a duty to, to come along in international agreements after 2012,'' Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said repeating a message to delegates at a United Nations-sponsored meeting to review a report on the regional effects of rising global temperatures. President George W. Bush pulled Washington out of Kyoto in 2001, saying it would harm the U.S. economy and unfairly excluded developing nations from emissions targets. He has invested instead in technologies such as hydrogen and biofuels. Dimas acknowledged Washington had its own approach to fighting global warming but said it "does not help in reaching an international agreement and does not reduce emissions". The United States' emissions were currently 16 percent above 1990 levels, while emissions from the 15 EU nations that joined the bloc before 2004 were down 1.6 percent in 2005, he said. The so-called EU-15 agreed under Kyoto to cut their collective emissions by 8 percent compared to 1990 by 2012. Australia, which like the United States signed Kyoto but failed to ratify it, also drew Dimas' wrath on Monday. The report acknowledges that disruptions are likely to be felt hardest in poor nations, such as sub-Saharan Africa and Asia where millions more could go hungry because of damage to farming and water supplies. The chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said governments have to show real political will as well as provide good practical solutions such as the transfer of technologies to developing countries. He added that in his view not enough is being done. ''What we are really talking about is as much an ethical issue as an issue that concerns the stability of global society. In the framework of Convention on Climate Change, it's clearly specified that resources will be provided by developed countries to the developing world, and that transfer of technology in particular will be facilitated by the developed countries. So I think it's there in the agreement, but it's a question of both implementing in letter and spirit, and there may I say enough is not happening,'' IPCC chairman Rajendra Pauchauri said. Achim Steiner, the head of the U.N. Environment Programme predicts more heatwaves and damage to coral and concludes there are "potentially catastrophic" developments ahead. He told Reuters last week that "even a half metre (20 inch) rise in sea levels would have catastrophic effects in Bangladesh and some island states". The U.N. climate panel is giving the most authoritative study on the regional impact of climate change since 2001. A U.N. report last February concluded it was more than 90 percent likely that recent warming had a predominantly human cause. The United Nations reckons these findings will add pressure on governments to do more to head off damaging change. Steiner believes the public, governments and businesses seem convinced that global warming is a major threat and not some vague theory about which scientists disagreed. Pauchari agrees that the issue is no longer whether or not we are damaging the planet but how we deal with it. He proposes doing more research to cope with the development of crops resistant to the coming changes as a means of avoiding hunger. ''You need to do a lot more in order to arrive to what kind of solutions would be required, in terms of adaptation. In some cases, you may even have to mount research and development programs. You know, take the case of impacts on agriculture. Perhaps one has to do a lot more research to see how to develop drought resistance crop, how to develop those who are tolerant to high level of salinity, and can take high temperature without drop in yields,'' Pauchari said. In Brussels' city centre, environmental group Greenpeace displayed an arch with a photos exhibition to raise awareness in the streets. ''I don't think that all measures to combat climate change will be unpopular. I think some will be, I think phasing out fossils fuel will be unpopular with the fossils fuels companies, but I think all of us have to take seriously the impact of climate change,'' Stephanie Tunmore, Greenpeace spokesperson, explained. Here, everyone seems to agree that we need to change our behaviour, but only few seem ready to do it.

ITN Source | April 2, 2007

Tags:. .adaptation. .hungry. .harm. .cope. .ethical