More is to come

Around 61 inches of water flooded Venice early this month, in what has been the highest figure since 1986. Scientists have indicted global warming for this incident.

It has been officially declared that this decade has been the warmest in the last 2000 years!

Ongoing at Poznań, Poland, is the 14th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Climate Change Conference where UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer has expressed satisfaction with the serious discussions emerging.

Delegates from 190 countries are deliberating on negotiations for a climate change treaty expected to be finalized in Copenhagen next year. Last week, delegates focused largely on adaptation, or helping developing countries take steps to withstand severe drought, extreme storms, and other events expected to become more frequent as a result of climate change.

By 2030, poor countries will need $130 billion each year for adaptation and emissions-reduction projects, about six times the amount now available. The Developed Countries Fund and strategies for streamlining it and feeding it into sustainable development were debated.

It is also expected that the Poznan talks will see the launch of the Adaptation Fund, which will provide developing countries with real money for them to adapt to the inevitable impact of climate change. It is generally being recognised that a global response to climate change should have four building blocks: mitigation, finance, technology and adaptation.

Meanwhile, two major new studies, in Nature and Science, sharply increase the projected sea level rise (SLR) by 2100 to as high as 2 metres, and not just 60 cms as predicted by IPCC. The inference was based on analysis of the observations. The first metre would flood 17 percent of Bangladesh, creating thousands of environment refugees. At the other end, hurricanes getting fiercer would see Florida and Louisiana eventually abandoned.

The Science article explained what the IPCC did wrong. Basically, taking into account the water added when ice breaks off from glacial flows, hitherto not included by IPCC which found it hard to model this loss. Warming glaciers raise sea level in two main ways.

We in India too have seen fiercer storms and cyclones off the coast. Under the blitzkrieg of the terrorist attack in Mumbai, Chennai was going through one of its worst cyclones. Floodwaters entered several homes causing loss of property and some lives.

Do we still want to cling on to adaptation, and put off mitigation to when we are rich? Our policies don’t seem to indicate informed policies.

Let us know what you think. What do we need to do, or not do?