Climate change 'worse than first thought'

Published on Wednesday 21 January 2009 21:30

THE author of a key government report on climate change has said the situation is even worse than he previously thought.

Lord Nicolas Stern woke the world up to the threat of climate change when he produced the Stern Review three years ago.

However, he has now said he thinks that the risks are even more dire than he first thought.

Writing in New Scientist magazine, he said: "Since my colleagues and I published the Stern Review in 2006, it has become apparent that the risks and potential costs of the impacts of climate change are even greater than we originally recognised.

"Global emissions of greenhouse gases are growing more quickly than projected, the ability of the planet to absorb them now appears lower than was assumed, the potential increases in temperatures due to rising gas concentrations seem higher, and the physical impacts of a warming planet are appearing at a faster rate than expected."

He suggested the target for levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere should be lower than he previously recommended.

The Stern Review recommended that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases should be stabilised within a range of 450 to 550 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Now, he believes, the target should not exceed 500ppm, if we are to "keep down the risks of potentially catastrophic impacts that could result from average global temperatures rising 4C or more above pre-industrial levels."

Lord Stern, who was head of the UK Government Economic Service until 2007 and who is now chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, warned that the global economic downturn must not delay us from tackling climate change.

Instead he urged spending on low-carbon technologies to improve energy efficiency should be brought forward.

He said: "While the global economic downturn could distract us from the bigger task of tackling climate change, it is an opportunity to bring forward investments in low-carbon technologies while costs are lower.

"It can provide job opportunities in the short run in key sectors where resources are idle, such as construction."

He added that in the long term, investments in low-carbon technologies could provide sustainable economic growth, "in contrast to recent booms, and eventual busts, driven by flaky dot-coms or inflated house prices".

He added: "In 2009, we have a real chance to set a path towards a low- carbon future. It is the only realistic future for growth and for overcoming world poverty."

Duncan McLaren, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said he was pleased Lord Stern had made his comments, which were "widely understood by the scientific community".

However, he did not think it was ambitious enough to aim to keep greenhouse gas emissions at 500ppm. "It should be no more than 400 and I'm very worried that in the long term stabilisation will have to be 350, which we are above already," he said.

No cooling off, period, as Antarctica joins the hot spots

ANTARCTICA is becoming warmer, rather than cooler as was widely believed, according to a new study.

Scientists say temperatures in Antarctica have risen by half a degree Celsius since the 1950s.

They reviewed satellite and weather records for the continent, which contains 90 per cent of the world's ice.

Previously, it had been believed that, while the rest of the world was warming, Antarctica was cooling.

"The thing you hear all the time is that Antarctica is cooling, and that's not the case," said Eric Steig, of the University of Washington in Seattle, in the journal Nature.

Global-warming sceptics have in the past emphasised reports of a cooling of Antarctica as evidence to back their view that warming is a myth.

Antarctica's ice contains enough frozen water to raise world sea levels by 57 metres, meaning even a tiny amount of melting could threaten coastal cities from Beijing to London.

Greenland and West Antarctica combined hold enough ice to raise sea levels by 14 metres.