Climate Change
Climate change is costing us now
Despite the strong conclusions of the international and Australian
scientific communities there are people yet to be convinced that
human-induced climate change is likely to or already having adverse
impacts.
Climate scientists tend to focus on what might happen decades into the
future based on scenarios of varying future greenhouse gas emissions.
However, the starting point can be today, as measured by environmental
trends of rising temperatures, longer droughts, depleted water
resources, more heatwaves, shifting storm tracks, rising sea levels and
more extreme events.
Tropics: Global Warming Likely to Significantly Affect Rainfall Patterns
Analyzing global model warming projections in models used by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a team of scientists headed
by meteorologist Shang-Ping Xie at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa's
International Pacific Research Center, finds that ocean temperature
patterns in the tropics and subtropics will change in ways that will
lead to significant changes in rainfall patterns. The study will be
published in the Journal of Climate this month, breaking ground on such regional climate forecasts.
"No change whatsoever" in scientists' conviction that climate change is occurring
Despite some politicians
and TV personalities claiming that climate change is dead, a panel of
influential US and European scientists held a press conference at the
annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science to set the record straight on the state of the science and the
recent media frenzy against climate change.
"There has been no change in the scientific community, no change
whatsoever" in the consensus that globally temperatures are rising,
said Gerald North, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M
University. Recent data has shown that the decade from 2000-2009 was
the warmest decade on record.
China announces pledge to curb carbon emissions
The world inched closer to an elusive deal to combat climate change yesterday, when China, the world's biggest polluter, made its most substantial commitment yet to curb its carbon emissions and invest in clean energy.
The proposals, delivered by Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, on the first day of the UN general assembly meeting, included the promise of a "notable" decrease in the carbon intensity of China's economy, the amount of emissions for each unit of economic output, by 2020.
"At stake in the fight against climate change are the common interests of the entire world," Hu said. "Out of a sense of responsibility to its own people and people across the world, China fully appreciates the importance and urgency of addressing climate change."
Carbon targets 'dangerously optimistic
A leading UK climate scientist yesterday warned MPs that the government's climate change policies are "dangerously optimistic".Professor Kevin Anderson, the director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said the government's planned carbon cuts – if followed internationally – would have a "50-50 chance" of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 2C. This is the threshold that the EU defines as leading to dangerous climate change.
Anderson also said that the two government departments most directly involved with climate change policy were like "small dogs yapping at the heels" of more powerful departments, such as that run by the business secretary, Lord Mandelson.
He said that the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc), run by Ed Miliband, should be given more power.
