By Matthew Knight | CNN

LONDON, England Climate change is happening faster than previously predicted according to a new World Wildlife Fund report.

Bringing together some of the most recent scientific reports and data, “Climate change: faster, stronger, sooner” reveals that global warming is accelerating more rapidly than the predictions made in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report published in 2007.

One of the most concerning aspects of recent data is evidence that, in some places, the Arctic Ocean is losing sea ice 30 years ahead of current IPCC predictions.

Summer sea ice is now forecasted to completely disappear in the summer months sometime between 2013 and 2040 — something which hasn’t happened for over a million years.

The report’s author, geoscientist Dr Tina Tin told CNN: “Arctic sea ice is melting much faster than everybody had been expecting. Why? Well, maybe it’s because the positive feedback mechanisms have kicked in much quicker than we have been able to quantify.”

Positive feedback mechanisms amplify changes occurring in the climate. In the case of the Arctic region there is a sort of vicious circle of warming occurring. White ice sheets perform an important function in moderating global temperature by reflecting heat from the sun back into space. But they have begun to melt as the earth has warmed. The result is more dark sea water which absorbs heat, which in turn warms the earth more and encourages further melting.

Globally, sea levels are now expected to rise more than double the IPCC’s most recent forecast of 0.59 meters before the end of the century. This will put millions of people in coastal regions at risk.

World food production is also feeling the heat as yields of wheat, maize and barley had dwindled in recent months.

In Europe, ecosystems in the North and Baltic Sea are believed to be experiencing their warmest temperatures since records began. And the Mediterranean is likely to experience an increased frequency of droughts.

The WWF report also highlights a 2007 study conducted by the British Antarctic Survey. “Widespread acceleration of tidewater glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula” concluded that floating tide-water glaciers on the peninsula are losing ice faster and making a greater contribution to global sea level rise than was previously thought.

Read on here.

South Carolina: SC must be part of solution to global warming crisis

Editorial: Post & Courier – S. DAVID STONEY, Jr., Ph.D.

Mark Newgent’s appeal to Gov. Mark Sanford to reject the Climate Energy and Commerce Advisory Committee climate report (“Climate proposals fail economic test,” Oct. 13) and do nothing about the growing climate crisis fails the tests of logic and common sense.

It must be seen for what it is: a deliberately deceptive, one-sided attempt to protect the vested interests he represents. In the first place, he delivers a personal attack on the integrity of the Center for Climate Strategies, the consulting firm that prepared the report, accusing it of being a “global warming alarmist advocacy group.”

In fact, CCS simply uses the best science and economics currently available to lay out possible trajectories toward achieving the kinds of reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that, if adopted on a sufficiently wide basis, would, according to our best current scientific estimates, prevent dangerous, potentially catastrophic global warming.

Having worked as a volunteer with CCS staffers on a technical working group for nearly a year in the preparation of the committee’s report, I can assure Post and Courier readers that a very considerable effort went into its preparation.

Mr. Newgent is particularly exercised over the recommendation that South Carolina’s utilities achieve some of their future energy production by promoting energy efficiencies and renewable energy sources. He attempts to frighten readers by noting that this will cost something. Well, yes, any and all future increases in energy production will cost us something. Just wait until we see how much we’ll soon be paying each month during the 10-year construction period for the new nuclear power plants that SCE&G and Santee-Cooper want to build.

In the interim, taking advantage of increased efficiencies and decreased energy waste is the cheapest and fastest way to reduce energy use and greenhouse emissions. It might turn out that increasing efficiency and renewables could make the construction of costly new power plants unnecessary.

Mr. Newgent argues that the future cost of not taking action now to reduce global warming will not be high. One wonders on just what planet Mr. Newgent lives. Uncontrolled global warming will cause around 20 feet of sea level rise due to the melting of the Greenland ice sheet and possibly another 20 feet of rise due to melting of the West Antarctica ice sheet. The idea that there will be no cost to our children’s children for them to relocate every coastal city in South Carolina to some high and dry location is, to say the least, very strange.

Finally, in a false argument, Mr. Newgent claims that there will be no cost associated with inaction because, even if South Carolina were to stop all greenhouse gas emissions, it would only decrease global temperatures by two-thousandths of a degree celsius.

Read on here.

U.K.: Low-carbon economy is not a luxury

Elliot Morley | BBC News

The world’s focus is rightly on the turmoil in the financial markets and the global economic slowdown.

 

Some commentators, indeed some politicians, have used the deteriorating economic circumstances to argue that tackling climate change through the transition to a low-carbon economy is a luxury item; saying it is too expensive, could damage competitiveness, and should be a secondary political objective.

This is an understandable view but, in my opinion, it is short-sighted.

The global economy and the climate system are linked and the current slowdown represents a unique opportunity to use public sector investment to kick-start the economy and build the low-carbon infrastructure we need for our long-term prosperity.

The low-carbon economy is an integral part of economic recovery, not an optional bolt on.

‘Unique opportunity’

Some economists are arguing that in order to kick-start the economy, governments will need to invest in major infrastructure projects to help stimulate demand in the economy, increase investment and create jobs.

This presents us with a unique opportunity to create the low-carbon infrastructure we need for our future prosperity, such as more renewable energy generation, better public transport networks, smarter and more flexible electricity grids, “retrofitting” buildings to increase energy efficiency, and a network of pipelines to carry captured CO2 from fossil fuel power plants to storage sites under the North Sea.

This investment in infrastructure, together with policies to structure financial and industrial markets to deliver social and environmental goods, would help reignite the economy, reduce our dependence on imported fossil fuels and improve energy and climate security.

The political will has been found to stabilise the banking crisis. Now we need that same political will to tackle the economic slowdown to tackle the twin challenges of climate and energy security.

So, what are the building blocks required to generate the political support to drive economic investment into a low-carbon future?

Firstly, we need a global political agreement on how to tackle climate change beyond 2012. Most eyes are focusing on the UN meeting in Copenhagen in 2009 for a settlement.

However, if negotiations are to be successful, the political conditions must be created beforehand. The Italian G8 Summit next July is a key milestone.

Read on here.

U.K.: Government promises big on climate change action

 

by David Masters | Fair Home.co.uk

The British Government has pledged to cut the UK’s carbon emissions 80% by 2050 compared to 1990 levels.

This replaces the former target of reducing carbon output 60% by the middle of the century.

Ed Miliband, recently appointed as the new energy and climate change secretary, announced the new targets this week to MPs in Westminster.

Miliband said that turmoil on the world’s financial market should not be an excuse for Britain to ignore its commitment to tackle climate change.

The new targets mean that the government has accepted the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee, chaired by Lord Turner.

Last week the committee told the government that the UK should commit to an 80% reduction in greenhouse gases compared to 1990 levels, and that the commitment should cover all sectors of the economy.

In addition, Miliband announced plans to change the Energy Bill so that small scale renewable projects are offered more support.

He also warned energy companies that unless something is done to end overcharging on prepayment energy meters then the government will step in with new legislation.

Environmental campaigners have welcomed the pledge to further reduce carbon emissions.

Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace, said the government’s new commitment is encouraging and internationally significant.

He added that meeting the targets will require determined action from the current Labour government and all future governments, as well as the British population.

However, some environmental groups have been more cautious in welcoming the proposed changes.

World Development Movement, the RSPB, Christian Aid, and WWF all said the government must do more to cut emissions in the UK rather than buying in carbon credits from overseas.

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Australia: Top scientists urge Govt to remain focused on climate change

 

ABC News

More than 40 of Australia’s top scientists are urging the Federal Government not to let the world financial crisis stop urgent action on climate change.

The scientists have all signed a nine-point action plan that calls for reducing carbon emissions locally and globally by 25 to 30 per cent by 2020.

Dr Andrew Glickson from the Australian National University co-authored the plan and says there’s a climate crisis that needs just as much attention as the problems on Wall Street.

“That $700 billion which the US is directing towards failed credit markets, that’s about the magnitude of expenditure which is urgently required in order to do something effective but it seems that the environment has been taken for granted,” he said.

One of the group says moves to solve the global financial crisis show what the world can do when it has the will to act

Professor Barry Brook, head of climate change studies at Adelaide University, says the credit crisis shows that political will can bring swift results.

“They’ve shown they can do that with the banking system,” he said.

“It’s not such a large step to say ‘let’s do they same with the energy supply crisis’, which in turn feeds on to problems which are underpinning climate change and more broadly environmental sustainability.”

Professor Brook says scientists are concerned that global warming seems to be slipping off the global agenda.

“So I think it’s disappointing in the sense that right now the interest is not in solving the climate problem in a serious way,” he said.

“It’s about solving capitalist business as usual but nevertheless it’s encouraging in that it shows that there is a possibility that society will make that leap,” he said.