Europe 'must adapt on climate'

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3570602.stm

 

Wednesday, 18 August, 2004

 

Europe 'must adapt on climate'

By Alex Kirby

BBC News Online environment correspondent

 

Europeans must learn how to live with a changing

climate as well as seeking to limit its effects by

cutting emissions, the European Environment Agency

says.

 

An EEA report, Impacts of Europe's changing climate,

says fewer than 50 years remain to act against the

threat.

 

It says melting meant Europe's glaciers lost a tenth

of their mass last year, and harvests fell by almost a

third.

 

The EEA says the climate change under way now probably

exceeds all natural climate variation for a thousand

years.

 

Warmer in Europe

 

The report brings together existing knowledge about

how the climate is changing, and highlights some

pointers of particular concern to Europe.

 

If we go on as we are, we have less than 50 years

before we encounter conditions which will be uncharted

and potentially hazardous

Professor Jacqueline McGlade, EEA

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests

the global average temperature could on present trends

be from 1.4 to 5.8C warmer in 2100 than in 1990.

 

The EEA says the comparable temperature increase for

Europe is between 2 and 6.3C.

 

It says the 2003 heatwave caused melting which reduced

the mass of the Alpine glaciers by 10%, and harvests

in many southern countries were down by as much as

30%.

 

The European Union says the world should act to try to

prevent temperatures rising more than 2C above their

1990 level, an increase which it regards as the

highest sustainable level.

 

The report says: " On present trends this target is

likely to be exceeded around 2050. "

 

The EEA's executive director, Professor Jacqueline

McGlade, said: " This report pulls together a wealth of

evidence that climate change is already happening and

having widespread impacts, many of them with

substantial economic costs, on people and ecosystems

across Europe.

 

" Europe has to continue to lead worldwide efforts to

reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but this report also

underlines that strategies are needed, at European,

regional, national and local level, to adapt to

climate change. "

 

The clock is ticking

 

Professor McGlade told BBC News Online: " This is the

first time we've called specifically for Europe to

adapt, but we're not minimising the Kyoto Protocol

process. We remain committed to the need to cut

emissions.

 

" What the report shows is that, if we go on as we are,

we have less than 50 years before we encounter

conditions which will be uncharted and potentially

hazardous. "

 

The report says:

 

* by 2050, about 75% of the glaciers in the Swiss

Alps will probably have disappeared

* at sea, there has been a northward shift of

zooplankton species over the last 30 years by up to

1,000 km (625 miles)

* projections suggest annual river discharge will

decline strongly in southern and south-eastern Europe,

but increase almost everywhere in the north and

north-east of the continent

* cases of encephalitis carried by ticks, and

associated with a warming climate, increased from 1980

to 1995 in the Baltic region and central Europe, and

remain high.

 

The report says human activities have raised the

atmospheric concentration of one of the main

greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, to 34% above its

pre-industrial level.

 

Up not down

 

To achieve the EU's goal of limiting the temperature

rise to 2C by 2100, it says, global greenhouse

emissions " need to be reduced substantially " .

 

But it says: " Due to ongoing emissions of greenhouse

gases, the observed rise in global temperature is

expected to continue and increase during the 21st

Century. "

 

The EEA underlines the very long time it would take to

slow the rate of climate change, because of the

longevity of many gases.

 

It says: " There is new and stronger evidence that most

of the warming observed over the last 50 years is

attributable to human activities.

 

" Even if society substantially reduces its emissions

of greenhouse gases over the coming decades, the

climate system would continue to change over the

coming centuries. "

 

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/3570602.stm

 

Published: 2004/08/18 07:34:46 GMT

 

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