"Dangerous"
Global Warming
Possible by 2026
By Alister Doyle
31 January , 2005
Planet
Ark
OSLO - World
temperatures could surge in just two decades to a threshold likely to
trigger dangerous disruptions to the earth's climate, the WWF environmental
group said on Sunday.
It said the Arctic
region was warming fastest, threatening the livelihoods of indigenous
hunters by thawing the polar ice-cap and driving species like polar
bears towards extinction by the end of the century.
"If nothing is done, the earth will have warmed by 2.0 Celsius
(3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by some time between 2026
and 2060," the WWF said in a report.
Few scientists have
estimated such an early date for a 2.0C rise, seen by the WWF as a threshold
that may spur "dangerous" warming, raising sea levels and
causing more floods, storms or droughts and driving some species to
extinction.
World temperatures
have already risen by about 0.7C since 1750 with most scientists blaming
a build-up of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide emitted by burning
fossil fuels in factories, power plants and cars.
The European Union
and many other environmental groups say that governments should cap
emissions of greenhouse gases to try to prevent a 2.0C temperature rise.
The United States has rejected binding caps under the UN's Kyoto protocol.
At some point, some
scientists fear that rising temperatures could cause a runaway warming,
for instance by melting permafrost in Siberia that could in turn release
deposits of heat-trapping methane to the atmosphere.
"Time is running
out to avoid a two degree rise," said Mark New, a climate expert
at England's Oxford University who made the 2026-60 projections in the
report commissioned by the WWF.
TIME BOMB?
He told Reuters
his study was based on a review of climate models used by the UN climate
panel in its latest 2001 report. Another international report last week
said that rising temperatures were a ticking time bomb for the climate.
Others scientists
say that such projections are scaremongering and reckon temperatures
will rise far less sharply, if at all, because of the buildup of greenhouse
gases.
New's study projected
that the Arctic would warm by 3.2-6.6C if the globe warmed by 2.0C overall.
In the Arctic, such
a warming could melt polar ice in summer by 2100, pushing polar bears
towards extinction. On land, forests would grow further north, overrunning
tundra that is a habitat for birds including snow buntings and terns.
"Global warming
threatens to wreak havoc on the traditional ways of life of Inuit, putting
an end to our hunting and food sharing culture," said Sheila Watt-Cloutier,
chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference.
The Arctic warms
faster than the global average because dark water and land, once uncovered,
soaks up more heat than snow or ice. A report by 250 scientists last
year also projected a fast warming in the Arctic that would also open
new shipping routes and make the region accessible for oil and gas exploration.
The WWF report is
to be presented at a conference in Exeter, England, on Feb. 1-3. The
talks will focus on a 1992 UN convention whose goal is to stabilise
greenhouse gases at levels meant to prevent "dangerous" human
interference on the climate.
The convention does
not define what it means by "dangerous" climate change.
The UN's Kyoto protocol,
seeking to rein in greenhouse gas emissions under the convention, will
enter into force on Feb. 16. President George W. Bush pulled out of
Kyoto in 2001, saying it would cost too much and wrongly excludes developing
nations.