Articles Posted in Climate Change

The United Nation Food and Agriculture Organization has released a report which finds that proper use of grassland can assist in reducing carbon dioxide and therefore aid in combating Climate Change. In a summary of the report, Constance Neely, co-author of the report, is quoted as saying: “Grasslands represent the majority of the world’s agricultural area and they hold an enormous amount of the soil carbon, so we have a fantastic potential to have both better livelihoods and a better natural resource base while mitigating and adapting to climate change,”

The report goes on to claim that if between 5 and 10 percent of all grazing lands were placed under carbon sequestration management by 2020, the result could be the storage of 184 million metric tons of carbon a year.

-Steven Silverberg

A study released today discusses the impact of Climate Change on water resources and ultimately across border conflicts over those resources. The study issued by the Pacific Institute notes that 40% of the world’s population obtains its water from shared resources.

As a result of the impacts of climate change the study suggests that international conflicts over water resources will increase. As noted in a press release accompanying the study: “Most existing treaties and agreements are based on the outdated assumption that future water supply and quality will not change. Adapting to climate change is going to require changes in the institutions and policies that have been put in place under international treaties.”

–Steven M. Silverberg

A study released this week predicts an average shift in climate belts of a quarter of a mile per year requiring ecosystems to adapt at a more rapid pace than may be sustainable. As reported by the Carnegie Institution which participated in the study:

“Plants and animals that can tolerate a wide range of temperatures may not need to move. But for the others, survival becomes a race.”

The Copenhagen Climate Change Conference ended with a draft “Accord” addressing some of the issues faced by the conference but disappointing many. The text of the draft Accord makes several statements about the need for the implementation of actions to address climate change and then states:

“9. To this end, a High Level Panel will be established under the guidance of and accountable to the Conference of the Parties to study the contribution of the potential sources of revenue, including alternative sources of finance, towards meeting this goal.

10. We decide that the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund shall be established as an operating entity of the financial mechanism of the Convention to support projects, programme, policies and other activities in developing countries related to mitigation including REDD-plus, adaptation, capacity-building, technology development and transfer.

The Global Carbon Project issued its “Carbon Budget 2008” yesterday which concludes, among other things, that carbon dioxide emissions have increased by 29% since 2000. In addition, the emissions are 41% above 1990 levels, which is the Kyoto reference year.

The summary of the report also notes that coal is the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions and that 90% of the increase in emissions from coal are the result of increased use of coal by China and India.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) released a study on Friday of millions of readings, going back as far as 1950, from 1800 weather stations throughout the United States, which show a significant increase of record high temperatures in relation to record low temperatures. As noted in a press release about the findings: “[I]f temperatures were not warming, the number of record daily highs and lows being set each year would be approximately even.”

Instead, the study shows that record highs are outpacing the record low temperatures by roughly 2 to 1. The authors of the study cite this as a clear indication of climate change, which will continue if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced.

A report by the Catlin Arctic Survey and the World Wildlife Fund based upon an expedition to the Arctic this summer predicts significant loss of summer ice within ten years and the disappearance of ice during the summers within as little as 20 years. The report details the findings and implications from the loss of summer ice in the Arctic.

The Executive Summary to the report notes in part”

“In addition to the regional consequences of arctic climate change are its global impacts. Acting as the Northern Hemisphere’s refrigerator, a frozen Arctic plays a central role in regulating Earth’s climate system. A number of critical arctic climate feedbacks affect the global climate system, and many of these are now being altered in a rapidly warming Arctic….Recent observations strongly suggest that climate change may soon push some systems past tipping points, with global implications. For example, the additional heat absorbed by an increasingly ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer is already accelerating local and regional warming and preventing sea ice from recovering.”

In a press release issued today, the Department of Energy and Climate Change announced that the London Conference of the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF) had concluded their meeting with agreement on a number of issues related to Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)Technology.

The primary conclusions of the conference are cited as:

“- agreement that more than 20 industrial scale CCS demonstrations could be needed by 2020, including in developing countries, with knowledge sharing between projects.

A report released by the United Nations yesterday entitled “Climate Change Science Compendium 2009” finds that many predicted effects of global warming on climate change are occurring much more rapidly than originally predicted. A press release which summarizes the report notes in part: “the newly emerging science points to some events thought likely to occur in longer-term time horizons, as already happening or set to happen far sooner than had previously been thought.”

Among those predicted events the report finds:

“growing concern among some scientists that thresholds or tipping points may now be reached in a matter of years or a few decades including dramatic changes to the Indian sub-continent’s monsoon, the Sahara and West Africa monsoons, and climate systems affecting a critical ecosystem like the Amazon rainforest.