‘Nobody on planet untouched by impacts of climate change’
The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is out and it warns of direct risks to humanity from flood, famine and conflict.
And it’s been released just in time for the UK cinema debut of Noah the movie. A coincidence surely?
I was confronted by the poster as I got onto the tube this morning. A biblically bearded Russell Crowe (Noah) looking defiant but humble as he prepares to save a chosen few (and a lot of animals) from the deluge.
In Yokohama, Japan, a similarly bearded, but generally more humble Rajendra Pachauri chairman of the IPCC, concluded: “Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change.”
The findings of the IPCC’s latest report – the work of more than 300 scientists from 70 countries – warns of some well-recognised risks from climate change but does so in more detail, with more regional accuracy than before.
The report argues warming has already slowed the growth in global crop yields over the past 40 years.
Read more: ‘we live in an era of man-made climate change’ – IPCC report
It finds over the next 50 years harvests of wheat, and maize – will be reduced as the planet warms.
Some crops may get a boost from global warming, but the world’s staple, wheat could see yield reductions of 2 per cent per decade from now on, the report concludes.
Rising sea levels due to the melting of the polar ice caps will increase the risk of storm related damage, particularly in poorer, coastal communities in places like south east Asia.
Increasing acidity in the oceans from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could also reduce the abundance of coral reefs and fish stocks in some areas.
https://vine.co/v/Mq7iZQIHlMi/embed/simple
IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri on the cost of doing nothing about climate change
Reduced food production could lead to conflict, the report also finds.
Rather than sit still and starve, increasingly mobile populations will get up and move to more habitable areas – leading to an increased risk of disputes.
And though the risks will affect everyone on the planet, they’re not fairly distributed.
Read more: climate change is ‘mankind’s greatest threat’
Those who are already living on the edge, either climatically or politically, are at the greatest risk whether it’s subsistence farmers in arid parts of the tropics or fishing communities on the beaches of the Philippines.
“The report concludes that people, societies, and ecosystems are vulnerable around the world, but with different vulnerability in different places. Climate change often interacts with other stresses to increase risk,” said Professor Chris Field, the co-Chair of the latest report.
But amid all the doom and gloom, the world’s leading climate scientists try with this report, to change the tone.
“We definitely face challenges, but understanding those challenges and tackling them creatively can make climate-change adaptation an important way to help build a more vibrant world in the near-term and beyond,” Mr Field said.
Read more: running out of time to tackle climate change
While some of those challenges, like sea level rise and ocean acidification, will be impossible to mitigate against, there is huge scope for adapting to the new, slightly warmer world. (That assumes, of course, emissions of greenhouse gasses stop warming it any further).
A quick flick through the Bible reveals a very long tradition of using scare tactics to try and motivate change – the story of Noah a classic of the genre.
It’s also a strategy exploited greatly by the environmental movement when it comes to climate change.
But this latest script has been written by scientists, not God, or greens, and they argue it’s time to play up the positives.
“If climate change is constantly portrayed as such a downer, you’re not going to be able to attract the creative people who are going to come up with the solutions,” Mr Field added.
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