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Climate Change-EU Must Act Now
>> NEW EVIDENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE: EU MUST ACT NOW
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GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE
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>> NEW EVIDENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE: EU MUST ACT NOW
BRUSSELS, 7 March 1995 (GP) Amidst recent scientific evidence of
climate change and resulting sea level rise, Greenpeace today
challenged the European Union to regain its lost leadership role
in combatting climate change.
EU Environment Ministers meet Thursday and will finalise their
position for the upcoming Climate Summit in Berlin [1].
Recent scientific developments include:
* The very recent collapse of the Larsen Ice Shelf on the
Antarctica Peninsula, spawning a huge iceberg, has been
attributed to warming by scientists from the British
Antarctic Survey.
* 1994 was the third hottest year on record, and the 1980s
and 1990s have been the hottest years recorded during the
130 years of reliable measurements
* Key scientists from major research institutes have gone on
the public record stating that it is unlikely that the
observed global warming is natural and have linked it to the
greenhouse effect. Germany's prestigious Max Planck
Institute is the most recent.
* NASA last week reported that high precision satellite
observations indicate sea level rise is happening twice as
faster as previously thought.
* Record floods in Europe have occurred two years in a row.
MUNICH RE, the world's largest reinsurance company, said
"point to a possible global warming".
"Greenpeace challenges the EU to wake up to this frightening new
evidence on the sure signs of climate change," said Aphrodite
Mourelatou, European advisor to Greenpeace International. "This
can only be done if the Ministers adopt a strong proposal to
negotiate a protocol at the Berlin Summit," she said.
At the last negotiating session of the Climate Convention before
the Summit the EU representatives did not have such a mandate
from the Environment Council to work on. As a consequence they
failed to reflect the December Environment Council conclusions: *
protocol negotiations should start at Berlin
* they should aim at further reduction of CO2 after 2000
* current commitments need to be strengthened and extended
"These conclusions must be fully translated into a negotiating
mandate if the EU is to take a strong position in Berlin," said
Mourelatou.
Furthermore, the mandate:
* should recognise the urgency to agree at the Berlin Summit a
protocol requiring developed (Annex 1) countries to progressively
reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other
greenhouse gases from the year 2000.
* It should also recognise that the protocol negotiations at
Berlin should be based on a Protocol proposed by the Alliance of
Small Island States (AOSIS), including a cut by developed
countries in CO2 of 20% by 2005. Greenpeace said that many
developing (G77) countries had now shifted in favour of
industrialised countries cutting C02.
"The EU can no longer hide behind the reluctancy of G77. A huge
door has just been opened in order to strengthen the Climate
Convention. If the EU Environment Ministers are honest in their
wish to combat climate change they must act now," said
Mourelatou.
The European Parliament last week adopted a Resolution on EU
climatic strategy, calling for EU leadership at the Climate
Summit. The Parliament gave its full support to the AOSIS
protocol. "The European Parliament has given a strong political
signal to the Environment Ministers. Failure to take this into
account would amount to ignoring the will of the European
citizens", said Aphrodite Mourelatou.
ends
For information: Aphrodite Mourelatou at Greenpeace EC Unit ++
32 2 280 1400
Bill Hare on scientific developments: 31 20 523 6268
[1] The Climate Summit is the First Conference of Parties to the
Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed in June 1992 at
the Earth Summit. The Berlin Summit, 28 March - 7 April 1995,
will be the largest environmental convention meeting since Rio.
SCIENTIFIC BRIEFING NOTES
1. Collapse of Larsen Ice sheet
The collapse of the north Larsen Ice Shelf is only the latest
example of a series of events linked to a pronounced warming in
the Antarctic region.
* In May 1994, the British Antarctic Survey reported the
fastest sustained atmospheric warming since worldwide temperature
records began 130 years ago with records at the British Faraday
Base on the Antarctic Peninsula showing an increase of 0.5oC per
decade since 1947. The Head of the Survey's meteorological
group, Dr David King, stated: "The rise is the fastest we have
on record...people should be looking to the future of the
consequences could be quite dire." (King, J.C. (1994), "Recent
Climate Variability in the Vicinity of the Antarctic Peninsula",
International Journal of Climatology, vol.14, p.357-369, May
1994; "Scientists say Antarctica is warming", Reuter, 24 June
1994.)
* In 1991, the British Antarctic Survey published
satellite images of the rapid disintegration of the Wordie Ice
Shelf possibly associated with the recent warm temperatures
(Doake, C.S.M. and Vaughan, D.G. (1991), "Rapid disintegration of
the Wordie Ice Sheet in response to atmospheric warming", Nature,
vol.350, p.328-330, 28 March 1991.)
* Temperatures in several Antarctic lakes, thought to
represent a sensitive indicator of short term climatic change,
have been rising rapidly in recent years. In another six
Antarctic lakes surface ice has thinned by up to 40 percent over
the last decade.
* The rising temperatures since 1970 appear to have
reduced the extent of winter sea ice around the Antarctic
Peninsula, which has been implicated as the cause of observed
declines in Adelie penguins which rely on the ice for shelter and
survival.
2. Record Temperatures
UK and US scientists report that 1994 was the third hottest year
on record. Temperatures averaged 0.31 deg C above the 1951-1980
average, and the global climate between March and October was
the warmest spell in the temperature record. The 1980s and
1990s have been the hottest years recorded during the 130 years
of reliable measurements, despite the temporary cooling effect
of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption in 1991, which injected millions of
tonnes of heat-reflecting dust into the atmosphere. After
three years the cooling effect has now largely worn off.
3. Is the warming natural?
More and more scientists are coming out saying that the global
warming trend is not natural and linking it to the greenhouse
effect. For example:
Scientists at the Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology in
Hamburg have examined the temperature record and concluded that
they are 90-97.5% certain that the observed warming of the last
20-30 years is not due to natural variability. (Hegerl, G.C., van
Storch, H., Hasselman, K., Santer, B.D., Cubasch, U., Jones, P.
Detecting Anthropogenic Climate Change with an Optimal
Fingerprint Method, Report No. 142, Max-Planck Institute for
Meteorology, Hamburg).
A century-long global warming trend, such as we are presently
experiencing, is a rare event over the past several thousand
years, and suggests an 80-89 percent likelihood that this warming
trend is not entirely natural. (Schneider, S.H., "Detecting
climatic change signals: are there any fingerprints?", Science,
vol.263, p.341-347, 21 January 1994)
A climate model study at Princeton University, using a
simulated 1,000-year time series of global mean temperatures,
prompted the following conclusions from the researchers:
"...these results suggest that the observed trend is not a
natural feature of the interaction between the atmosphere and
oceans. Instead, it may have been induced by a sustained change
in the thermal forcing, such as that resulting from changes in
atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and aerosol loading".
(Stouffer, R.J., Manabe, S. and Vinnikov, K.Ya., "Model
assessment of the role of natural variability in recent global
warming", Nature, vol.367, 17 February 1994)
James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies
ALSO states that he is "more confident than ever" that there is
"a real warming which is not just a chance fluctuation but is a
long-term trend, and that the trend is due to the greenhouse
effect". (The New York Times, 27 January 1995.)
The head of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and
Research of the UK Meteorological Office, Dr David Carson stated
that "there is clear observational evidence of global-warming of
global-scale warming in this century" and that "anthropogenic
emissions of greenhouse gases have been, and will increasingly
be, a significant contributing factor". (Letter to the Sunday
Times, 18 September 1994).
4. NASA satellite measurements
Recent satellite date monitoring sea-levels have indicated that
the sea-level has been rising at around 3 mm per year
(30cm/century). The satellite date corroborate more traditional
methods using tide gauges, however it is too early yet to tell
with precision what the long term trend is. Dr Nerem of NASA
estimates that the trend is around 1-2mm/year once the effects of
the current El Nino are factored out.
5. European Floods
Most climate models (General Circulation Models, GCMs) predict a
10-30 percent increase in precipitation over Northern
Hemisphere mid-latitudes with a doubling of CO2 concentrations.
Two major factors cause this increase: Increased air
temperatures increase evaporation from the oceans, and also heat
the land faster than the ocean, leading to more landward winds.
Along with a globally averaged warming of 0.5oC, both of these
effects have been observed: The moisture above the ocean has
increased, and the last 3 seasons one has observed an unusual,
but consistent, change in circulation patterns, or wind
direction in winter, from easterly to westerly direction. This
is fully consistent with GCM predictions, though climate experts
are careful not to say that the recent flood is proof of climate
change.
Climate experts are clear that what caused the flood was the
amount of rain, and that the increase which caused it is
consistent with the climate models. Pier Vellinga, professor of
at the Free University of Amsterdam said "It is not yet proof
that global warming is causing these events but it should be
enough to bring home to governments the consequences if nothing
is done to tackle the problem" and that present
indications fit theoretical models of global warming, that they
are an important piece of circumstantial evidence that the
climate is changing due to the greenhouse effect."
MUNICH RE, the world's largest reinsurer, said that the recent
floods which have hit northern Europe "point to a possible
global warming".
6. 500 year projections of sea-level rise .
A leading IPCC climate scientist, Professor Tom Wigley, published
a paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in January
which calculated the sea-level rise over the next 500 years that
may result from several future levels of Carbon dioxide. His
work shows that the only the lowest CO2 stabilization scenario
maintains best guess estimates of sea level rise at or below
20cm above the present level for most of the next 500 years. A
20cm rise has been identified as a danger threshold for many
low-lying island countries.
For higher concentrations, corresponding to continuing emissions
of CO2 the best guess sea-level rise is around 1.28 metres by
2500. Such a sea-level increase would be catastrophic.
The most alarming aspect of Wigley s calculations is that even
after concentrations are stabilized the sea-level will continue
rising for many ,many centuries. For example, if concentration
of CO2 were to be stabilized at about double pre-industrial
levels (taking into account the effects of other greenhouse
gases) by 2100, sea level would continue to rise from around 26cm
then to 59 cm in 2500 - and it would still be rising. To achieve
even this level, would require early action to reduce emissions.
Wigley's highest scenario, which would correspond roughly to
continuing emissions, business-as-usual for most of next century,
would generate a sea-level rise of 40cm by 2100 and 128 cm by
2500 and still rising.
In this context it is important to recall the conclusions of the
IPCC 1994 report on RADIATIVE FORCING OF CLIMATE CHANGE, which
stated: "Perhaps the most important result ... is that
stabilization of emissions does not lead to stabilisation of CO2
concentration; in fact, the calculations show that concentrations
continue to increase slowly for at least several centuries.