Climate change impacts are already happening on all continents and across the oceans posing serious risk of conflict, food security, health, floods and migration, the United Nations’ expert panel said in a major report released on Monday on the impact of climate change.
While governments recognized that the negative effects of climate change is worsening in every part of the world, the latest report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that “countries are ill-prepared” for the potentially immense impacts of the changing climate.
The report, titled Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability details the impacts of climate change to date, the future risks from a changing climate, and the opportunities for effective action to reduce risks. A total of 309 coordinating lead authors, lead authors, and review editors, drawn from 70 countries, were selected to produce the report. They enlisted the help of 436 contributing authors, and a total of 1,729 expert and government reviewers.
Released in Yokohama, Japan, it concludes that responding to climate change involves making choices about risks in a changing world. The nature of the risks of climate change is increasingly clear, though climate change will also continue to produce surprises.
The report identifies vulnerable people, industries, and ecosystems around the world. It finds that risk from a changing climate comes from vulnerability (lack of preparedness) and exposure (people or assets in harm’s way) overlapping with hazards (triggering climate events or trends). Each of these three components can be a target for smart actions to decrease risk.
Reducing Risk
“ In view of these impacts and those that we have projected for the future, nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change,” said IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachauri at the press conference of the launching of the report. “ We look at adaptation experience (of countries) quite extensively, and there is a need to highlight the importance of adaptation and mitigation choices because this is the only way that we might be able to reduce the risk of climate change.”
Pachauri said the report identified some key risks of climate change to water resources, crop yields, migration of species, people living in coastal areas due to sea level rise, deaths and diseases due to extreme weather events, displacement of people, and conflict.
“ The ability of human society to embark on a move on climate-resilient pathways depends to a large extent on which we are prepared to mitigate emissions gases,” Pachauri said.
Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, said the latest IPCC report is the most comprehensive, scientific evidence to date on climate change.
“ Now we are at the point where we have so much information, so much evidence, that we can no longer plead ignorance. Ignorance is no longer an excuse to act on climate change,” Jarraud said.
“We live in an era of man-made climate change,” said Vicente Barros, Co-Chair of Working Group II. “In many cases, we are not prepared for the climate-related risks that we already face. Investments in better preparation can pay dividends both for the present and for the future.”
Climate Change Commission Secretary Mary Anne Lucille Sering, who was in Yokohama this week for the review of the report, said the IPCC gives a stark warning about the effects of the rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere without mitigation and adaptation.
“ The importance of the new report especially for the Philippines, is that we really have to understand all kinds of extreme weather events,” Sering told the Environews.ph. “Not just extreme rainfall but the lack of it. Slow onset events like droughts are as risky if not riskier because of its long-term implication especially on food security, health and sustainable economic growth. “
Sering stressed that the new report “validates the need to adapt in a 4 degrees Celsius scenario”, saying that if temperatures go beyond 2 degrees Celsius we will have “high impact” on humanity and the ecosystem.
Sering said that in the Philippines, the Commission has been pushing for vulnerability planning by government and private sectors alike and injecting climate and weather information in managing risks.
She said the Climate Change Cabinet Cluster will also convene to present before President Benigno Aquino III the roadmap for the remaining years of the present administration which will focus on science-based planning and climate exposure database— preparedness for extreme weather events, including slow onset events such as droughts.
High Impact
The report finds that climate change is already harming food production and causing food-price spikes but its predictions are even more grave for the future.
“The report finds that even at just one degree of warming there are negative impacts for major crops like wheat, rice and corn.” Lidy Nacpil, director of Jubilee South APMDD, a campaign group in the Philippines and a member of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice said.
“You no longer need to be a climate scientist to see the evidence that carbon pollution in the system is polluting our skies and killing people, its poisoning our oceans and killing our fish, its destroying our land and killing our food.”
“Scientists have rung the last alarm bell with this report – rich industrialized countries can no longer protect the interests of corporations who pollute whilst refusing to face up to the costs of that pollution to people’s lives and to the planet,” said Asad Rehman Head of International Climate at Friends of the Earth EWNI, a UK based member of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.
Greenpeace, on the other hand, urged world leaders to accelerate the transition to clean and safe energy.
“Oil rigs and coal power plants are weapons of mass destruction, loading the atmosphere with destructive carbon emissions that don’t respect national borders. To protect our peace and security, we must disarm them and accelerate the transition to clean and safe renewable energy that’s already started,” said Jen Maman, Peace Adviser at Greenpeace International.
The issue of economic impacts, where estimations vary wildly, has also grabbed attention, but for vulnerable regions losses caused by climate change cannot be valued in terms of GDP alone.
“Let’s not get distracted by limited economic models or be blinded by global GDP. What value can you put on the lives of 8,000 people left dead or missing by typhoon Haiyan? Or what is the cost of the trauma of children being torn from their mother’s arms due to storm surges? That is the true cost of climate change that should define the urgency of the action we take,” said Amalie Obusan, Regional Climate and Energy Campaigner at Greenpeace Southeast Asia and based in the Philippines.
“Today it’s the victims who are paying the costs of climate change while polluters are going free. Oil, coal and gas companies are earning huge profits but not being held liable for the damage they are causing. This has got to change and we are determined to change it.”
Greenpeace demands governments to come to the climate summit of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in September with serious offers that will help achieve a 100% renewable energy system. Solar, wind and other clean energy are already challenging our old system, but governments must accelerate the transition.
Text and photos by Imelda V. Abano
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