Cause for concern: extreme weather and climate change explained

Help stop dangerous climate change

Europe's continent-wide heat wave and fatal forest fires has focussed attention on global warming.

The 1990s were the warmest decade ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere, and 1998, 2001 and 2002 the warmest years. Already certain months this year have broken the records for highest temperature in many places.

But climate change is not just about hotter weather. Last summer Europe was suffering heavy flooding, and the heat waves are already giving way to floods in Asia this summer.

Extreme weather of this kind is predicted to become more common as climate change accelerates with continued warming [1]. In fact some climate scientists are suggesting that the extremes already happening suggest that climate change will be quicker and more severe than previously expected.

Recent extreme weather

Today in the UK the heat wave is causing commuter misery and health threatening levels of air pollution. The impacts are hitting other countries far more severely. The heat and fires have resulted in a Europe-wide death toll that is rising daily. Extreme weather events have also claimed many lives in Asia and the Americas this year:

• In the US, there were 562 tornadoes during May, resulting in 41 deaths[2].
• In India, at least 1500 people have already died as a result of record summer heat waves this year, which saw temperatures reach 49 degrees C[3] . Now in August, the worst monsoon floods in fifty years are affecting 600,000 people[4].
• Forest fires have hit Spain, France, Portugal, Canada, Russia, Poland and Bosnia.
• Drought is devastating this year's harvest in Germany. Yet in August last year southern parts of Germany were under water after the worst flooding for centuries.
• Heat waves have been followed by severe flooding in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan, India, China and Pakistan.

The UK outlook

In future the UK is likely to be increasingly affected by changing weather patterns.

• Many homes, businesses and coastal habitats that support huge populations of birds and wildlife, are now under threat of flooding and erosion. Rising sea levels and violent storms driven by global climate change are set to increase that risk, and could also spell the end to sandy beaches in the UK [5].
• The UK Climate Impact Programme Scenarios - the most detailed ever produced for the UK -suggest a future of hotter, drier summers and warmer, wetter winters with decreasing snowfall [6].

The scientific evidence

Current events are exactly in line with scientists' predictions of extreme weather in a world affected by global warming. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2000 of the world's top climate scientists, published a series of assessment reports on the state of climate science in 2001[7].

• The first concluded that fossil fuels were the primary cause of global warming, stating that "there is new and stronger evidence that most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities".
• It also pointed to a likely increase in extreme weather events such as heatwaves, increased precipitation leading to floods, and higher minimum temperatures and fewer colder days [8].
• The second report, on the impacts of climate change, predicted that the greatest impacts will be on the world's poorest people in parts of Africa and Asia - those least able to protect themselves from rising sea levels and increased drought and disease [9].
• By 2025 increasing drought will mean that 5 billion - or 2 out of every 3 people - will lack sufficient water and millions more will starve.[10]

The world's climate is sending a clear signal that our pollution is warming the world and causing more extreme weather:

• In June 2003 the UN's World Meteorological Organisation warned that extreme weather events would become more frequent due to climate change, and noted that in recent years the number of such extreme events had been increasing [11].
• "What we are seeing is absolutely unusual. We know that global warming is proceeding apace, but most of us were thinking that in 20-30 years time we would be seeing hot spells [like this]. But it's happening now. Clearly extreme weather events will increase." - Prof. John Schellnhuber, head of the Tyndall Centre on Climate Change Research
• "The impacts of global warming are such that I have no hesitation in describing it as a 'weapon of mass destruction'. Like terrorism this weapon knows no boundaries. It can strike anywhere, in any form - a heat wave in one place, a drought or flood or a storm surge in another. Nor is this just a problem for the future. Global warming is already upon us. - Sir John Houghton formerly chief executive of the UK Met Office and co-chair of the scientific assessment working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The need for action

Recent extreme weather powerfully underlines the need for urgent international action to tackle global warming.

International concern has led most governments into tentative steps to tackle carbon emissions with the Kyoto Protocol. The protocol's measures currently fall far short of the level of action needed, but it represents the only international process in place for addressing the global warming threat.

Kyoto requires Russia to ratify before it will come into full effect. There is widespread international concern that the U.S. and corporate interests are pressuring President Putin to resist from fulfilling Russia's commitment to ratify.

The main obstacle to effective action is also the world's biggest global warming polluter by far: the USA. The USA has 5% of the world's population and is responsible for 25% of the global emissions of Carbon Dioxide. If each were counted as separate countries, 25 US states would be in the top 60 polluting nations.

A new round of Kyoto negotiations will begin after ratification has been secured. The biggest challenge at these negotiations will be to secure the necessary international binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 60-80% by 2050. This will be impossible without the involvement of the U.S.

Climate solutions

The IPCC stated "Hundreds of technologies at low cost are already available to reduce climate damaging emissions, but government policies are needed to remove the barriers to those technologies." [12]

Meeting a 60-80% global reduction in carbon emissions will require massive effort to shift away from the fossil fuel economy in favour of increased renewable energy programmes, and a widespread uptake of energy efficiency. These clean, low carbon technologies offer huge additional benefits:

• Clean renewable energy - like wind power, solar power, wave and tidal power is pollution free and leaves no legacy of toxic or radioactive waste.
• Health and safety threats and the risk of terrorism associated with nuclear power would be also be relieved by the implementation of renewable energy.
• Energy efficiency reduces consumption and therefore fuel bills, benefiting consumers and alleviating fuel poverty. Reducing the demand on the energy system also makes it more secure.
• Alternative fuels such as biofuels offer carbon reductions, reduced nitrous and sulphurous oxides (that damage air quality, impact human health and can cause acid rain). They also offer a huge potential new stimulus for farmers and more localised use of crops grown for energy.
• In the long term, hydrogen from renewable sources offer further benefits, such as increased efficiency in transport, reduced or zero pollution at the tailpipe, reduced traffic noise and reduced running costs for drivers.

What you can do

• Don't buy Esso. This company has done more than any other to keep the US hooked on oil, as well as being behind Bush's decision to pull out of the Kyoto Protocol. For more information visit www.stopesso.com
• Log on to www.yes2wind.comfor all the info, tools and resources you'll need to campaign in favour of wind power in your area, for a clean energy future.

Resources

1.The IPCC Working Group I report: The Science of Climate Change (page 12) 2001
2. World Meteorological Organisation press release, 2/7/03
3. World Meteorological Organisation press release, 2/7/03
4. The Guardian, Global Warming may be speeding up, fears scientist, 6/08/03
5. English Nature press release, 22/7/03
6. ibid
7. The IPCC Working Group I report: The Science of Climate Change (page 12) 2001
8. ibid, (table 1, page 15)
9. The IPPC Working Group II report: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability 2001
10. ibid
11. World Meteorological Organisation Press release, 2/7/03
12. Report of Working Group III (Mitigation) of the IPCC, 2001 (section 7.2, 12.2)