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'The time to act is now'
30/04/2007 10:08 - (SA)
Bangkok, Thailand - A major climate meeting opened on Monday in the Thai capital with delegates debating how to rein in rising greenhouse gas emissions that could threaten hundreds of millions with hunger and disease in the coming decades.
For the rest of the week, hundreds of scientist and diplomats attending the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change meeting will work to finalise a report detailing a range of technological options to mitigate rising levels of carbon dioxide, methane and other heat-trapping gases.
"The time to act is now," Chartree Chueyprasit, a deputy secretary in Thailand's Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, told delegates.
"Global warming has increasingly become a hot (issue) which requires harmonised co-operating between all nations," he said. "The IPCC has realised the scientific knowledge to provide the necessary solutions."
The draft report, which will be amended following comments from dozens of governments, says emissions can be cut below current levels if the world shifts away from carbon-heavy fuels like coal, invests in energy efficiency and reforms the agriculture sector.
"The science certainly provides a lot of compelling reasons for action," said Rajendra Pachauri, chairperson of the climate change panel. "But what action and when is what the government will have to decide."
Two previous IPCC reports this year painted a dire picture of a future in which unabated greenhouse gas emissions could drive global temperatures up as much as 6 degrees Celsius by 2100. Even a 2-degree-Celsius rise could subject up to two billion people to water shortages by 2050 and threaten extinction for 20% to 30% of the world's species, the IPCC said.
Scientists have said that global warming could increase the number of hungry in the world in 2080 by between 140 million and one billion by contributing to widespread droughts and flooding. Diseases like malaria, diarrhoea and dengue fever could spread as temperatures rise and weather becomes increasing erratic, affecting the poorest of the world's poor.
The third report stresses that the world must quickly embrace a basket of technological options - already available and being developed - just to keep the temperature rise to two degrees Celsius.
- AP
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