Ireland must tackle its climate change obligations

When it comes to climate change, according to Dr.Vicky Pope, Head of Climate Change Met Office, Hadley Centre, UK, and senior climate change advisor to the UK Government, “Governments and the public need to understand the consequences of choosing particular greenhouse gas emission targets, but they also need to understand what will happen if targets are missed or if they cannot be agreed on by all countries. Failures by countries to achieve targets could have far-reaching consequences.”
Current projections by the EPA that Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions are predicted to grow over the next few years are extremely alarming particularly as Ireland is required under the Kyoto Agreement to achieve a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. According to Declan Waugh, Chartered Environmentalist and Chairman of Partnership for Change, a non-partisan climate change education and awareness organization, “the latest climate projections from the EPA demonstrate that radical and urgent changes are required in Irish society in order that we may meet our commitments on climate change, and minimize apart from anything else the burden of very significant financial penalties that will be imposed on Ireland for non-compliance, which in the current financial market should not be underestimated. If we act now it may not cost the earth, but if we wait the burden we will be imposing on future generations will be enormous.”

Partnership for Change is coordinating and organizing a major international Climate Change Conference in Cork on the 14th of November. Dr.Vicky Pope will be speaking at the conference and will discuss research undertaken by the internationally renowned Met Office at the Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom, which shows clearly that failures to meet targets could have worrying and significant consequences for the world's climate.

“Even with large and early cuts in emissions, these projections indicate that temperatures are likely to rise to around 2 degrees celcius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. If action is delayed or slow, then there is a significant risk of much larger increases in temperature. The uncertainties in the science mean that even if the most likely temperature rise is kept within reasonable limits, we cannot rule out the possibility of much larger increases. Adaptation strategies are therefore needed to deal with these less likely, but still real, possibilities,” says Dr Vicky Pope.

The Hadley Centre have conducted a series of “what if” climate projections, to give a better understanding of the temperature rises we could expect if action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions is slow or delayed.
In the first scenario, emissions continue to rise throughout the century. In the other scenarios, emission reductions have been imposed at various times and at various rates.
In the most optimistic scenario, emissions start to decrease in 2010 and reductions quickly reach 3% per year. This contrasts sharply with current trends, where the world's overall emissions are increasing at 1% per year - faster than even the worst cases used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emissions’ scenarios.
“What is very clear is that some increase in temperature is inevitable in the next century, and that the decisions and actions that the world takes now will have a profound impact on the climate later this century,” says Dr.Vicky Pope.
“Only an early and rapid decline in emissions gets anywhere close to the target of 50% reduction in emissions by 2050 put forward by the G8. If the world does not reduce its global warming emissions then, temperatures could rise as high as 7 degrees celcius above pre-industrial values by the end of the century. This would lead to severe and irreversible impacts,” she said.
Even modest temperature rises are likely to bring severe and irreversible impacts, says Professor Hugh Montgomery, Director of the Institute of Human Health and Performance at University College London. “Temperature rises may sound harmless. What harm can 6-8 degrees really do in a century? Well, temperatures have only risen by a tenth of that value in the last century- yet we are now facing the loss of all arctic summer sea ice in the next 5 years. And the melting won't stop elsewhere, because the temperature isn't falling." But what does that matter to us? "There is no greater threat to human health than climate change. Changes in disease patterns, storms, floods and droughts, agricultural and economic collapse, and resulting mass migration and war are all anticipated. And these will affect all of us, not just the nameless and faceless in45666666 “other lands.”
Currently when one examines climate change models what becomes evident is that projections are not the only things we should be worried by. Declan Waugh says “In any worst case modeling scenario the ability of the earth to absorb carbon dioxide may contribute to much greater risk of global warming reaching irreversibly dangerous tipping points. Recent research suggests that the ability of the oceans to absorb carbon is reducing, scientific studies have shown that the planet can no longer absorb the amount of carbon generated by human activities.” This is something that scientists are particularly worried about, according to Dr.Vicky Pope “Plants, soils and oceans currently absorb about half of the carbon dioxide emitted by humankind's activities, limiting rises in atmospheric CO2 and slowing global warming. As temperatures increase, this absorption is very likely to decrease. For example, plant matter in the soil breaks down more quickly at higher temperatures, releasing carbon more quickly, and amplifying the warming trend. Methane released from the thawing of permafrost will add to the warming. The impact of such methane release is currently not included in climate change calculations, and becomes more of a risk for larger temperature rises. Hence, the risks of dangerous climate change will not increase slowly as greenhouse gases increase. Rather, the risks will multiply if we do not reduce emissions fast enough.”

Dr.Vicky Pope is Head of Climate Change Advice for the UK Government at the Met Office, Hadley Centre. Professor Hugh Montgomery is Director of the Institute of Human Health and Performance at University College London. Both will be speaking at the Partnership for Change Climate Change conference in Cork on November 14th 2008. Partnership for Change was set up by Declan Waugh to support education and communication on climate change and global warming.