'Millions of lives at risk'
2006-09-12 08:19
Cape Town - The potential impact of climate change may be far greater than previously believed, Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk warned on Monday.
Speaking at a meeting of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Somerset West, he said climate change in southern Africa would place "millions of lives at risk".
The IPCC was established by the United Nations Environmental Programme and the World Meteorological Organisation in 1988 to assess scientific, technical and other information on climate change, its impacts, and options for mitigation and adaptation.
The panel has three working groups. Working Group II assesses human vulnerability to climate change, as well as its impact on ecological systems, socio-economic sectors and human health.
Van Schalkwyk said it was now appreciated that in Africa climate change impacts could include greater and more rapid sea level rise than previously projected.
The continent would also see "an increased incidence of extreme weather events; substantial reductions in surface water resources; accelerated desertification in sensitive arid zones; and greater threats to health, biodiversity and agricultural production".
In southern Africa, government was concerned about projections - heard at last year's National Climate Change Conference - of significant reductions of perennial surface water by the end of the century.
"This could threaten key ecological and livelihood resources, such as the Okavango Delta in Botswana, and large urban centres such as greater Cape Town, where we find ourselves today.
"Overall, the projected impacts of unmitigated climate change in Africa will greatly affect human livelihoods. The cost will be counted not only by environmentalists, but also by economists, doctors, subsistence farmers and fisher folk.
"The cost will be measured not only in US dollars and species loss, but in human mortality and morbidity, in millions of African lives at risk," he said.
Van Schalkwyk said it had become abundantly clear over the past decade, based on evolving science and work of the IPCC, that "the potential impacts of climate change may hold far greater risk than previously believed".
The IPCC's Working Group II was working on a Fourth Assessment Report, which, Van Schalkwyk said, would "give us further evidence on how close we may be to key physical tipping points - thresholds beyond which policy options will become very limited indeed, and damage irreversible".
- SAPA