Quick action needed to stem climate change

21 May 2008

The global community needs to act quickly to rein in the damage being caused to the environment, which has led to changes in climate that are already impacting people everywhere, said Dr Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC is a scientific intergovernmental body set up by the World Meteorological organisation (WMO) and by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to monitor climate change. It received the Nobel Peace Prize last year for its work.

Dr Pachauri said the effects of climate change are already being felt around the world and the current efforts being made will only allow the world to manage the effects that are already being felt from climate change.

“Average arctic temperatures increased at almost twice the global average rate in the past 100 years and the a nnual average arctic sea ice extent has shrunk by 2.7% per decade,” he said to a packed audience at Monash University’s Sunway campus in Bandar Sunway.

The lecture, titled simply Climate Change, was part of the 10 th Anniversary Lecture Series organised to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Sunway campus. More than 180 Monash University students, staff and visitors attended the presentation.

He said global atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHG) has increased markedly as a result of human activities, with an increase of 70% between 1970 to 2004 and added that continued emissions would lead to further warming of 1.8ºC to 4ºC over the 21 st century and induce many changes that would be larger than those observed during the 20 th century.

These changes, he said, would especially impact poorer communities that are less able to adapt to changes and more dependent on climate-sensitive resources like local water and food supplies.

“Between 120 million to 1.2 billion people will experience increased water stress in South and South East Asia by the 2020s,” he said.

Dr Pachauri, however, stressed that it is not too late to prevent further increases of global temperature and climate change.

He said the mitigation measures proposed currently would at most represent a 3% reduction in GDP in 2030, which is a delay in terms of development, of at most a year.

“This delay is small compared to the benefits that could eventually arise out of the proposed mitigation efforts.

However, he said committing to alternative development paths requires major change in a wide range of areas, such as economic structure, urban design, transport infrastructure, consumption patterns & lifestyles. - Jasbir Singh.