Experts reach agreement on global warming impact

Brussels, Apr 6: Climate experts neared agreement on Friday on the bleakest UN warning yet about the impacts of global warming, ranging from failing crops and hunger in Africa to species extinctions and rising sea levels.

Scientists working with government delegates from more than 100 nations on the UN climate panel were locked in overnight talks in Brussels, seeking to overcome differences about a 21-page summary due for publication at 1330 hrs IST.

Some parts of the text were toned down from a draft but delegates sharpened other sections, including adding a warning that some African nations might have to spend 5 to 10 per cent of gross domestic product on adapting to climate change.

The report predicts water shortages that could affect billions of people, extinctions of species and a rise in ocean levels that could go on for centuries. It says human emissions of greenhouse gases are very likely the main cause of warming.

The text also says climate change could lead to a sharp fall in crop yields in Africa, a thaw of Himalayan glaciers and more heatwaves for Europe and North America.

In one section, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) toned down risks of extinctions.

''Approximately 20-30 per cent of plant and animal species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperature exceed 1.5-2.5 degrees Celsius (2.7-4.5 Fahrenheit),'' the text said.

A previous draft had said 20-30 per cent of all species would be at ''high risk'' of extinction with those temperature rises.

FIGHT

One participant said the United States, China and Saudi Arabia opposed mention of a 2006 study by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern that said it would be cheaper to fight climate change now than suffer consequences of inaction.

The European Commission, Britain and Austria favoured including a reference to the Stern review.

The report also softened a sentence saying salt marshes and mangroves ''will be'' negatively affected by sea level rise to say they ''are projected to be'' negatively affected.

But it toughened some sections by saying ''significant loss of biodiversity'' was possible in parts of Australia such as the Great Barrier Reef by 2020.

The IPCC report makes clear climate change, blamed mainly on human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, is no longer a vague, distant threat.

''The whole of climate change is something actually here and now rather than something for the future,'' said Neil Adger, a British lead author of the report.

The report will set the tone for policy making in coming years, including the effort to extend the UN's Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.

Kyoto binds 35 rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions but has been undercut by a 2001 pullout by the United States, the top emitting nation.

US President George W Bush says Kyoto would cost US jobs and wrongly excludes developing nations such as China.

Today's report will be the second by the IPCC this year. In February, the first said it was more than 90 per cent probable that mankind was to blame for most global warming since 1950.

The report emphasises developing nations are likely to suffer most even though they have done little to burn fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution.

REUTERS