DENVER—Approximately
20-30 percent of plant and animal species are at increasing risk of
extinction if the global average temperature increases by another 2.2
to 4 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a major consensus report released
today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The
IPCC is a United Nations body charged with assessing the scientific
record on global warming.
The
panel concludes “with high confidence” that human-caused warming over
the last three decades “has had a discernible influence on many
physical and biological systems.” While the report warns of increasing
droughts, floods, heat waves, water stress, forest fires, and coastal
flooding in the U.S., it finds that “many impacts can be avoided,
reduced, or delayed” by quickly and significantly reducing global
warming pollution.
“This report challenges our leaders in Colorado
to take decisive action on global warming,” continued Baker. “We need
to listen to the science, and set goals for reducing global warming
pollution in Colorado
and nationally. The good news is we have the know-how to tackle global
warming. Through increasing energy efficiency, expanding renewable
energy, and capping and cutting carbon pollution, we can avoid the
worse effects of global warming.
Cars and power plants are the largest sources of U.S. global warming pollution, but the U.S.
could reduce its emissions immediately using on-the-shelf technologies
to improve energy efficiency and shift to renewable energy sources.
Major findings of today’s report for North America include the following:
- WATER
SECURITY: “Warming in western mountains is projected to cause decreased
snowpack, more winter flooding, and reduced summer flows, exacerbating
competition for over-allocated water resources.”
- FOREST
FIRES: “Disturbances from pests, diseases, and fire are projected to
have increasing impacts on forests, with an extended period of high
fire risk and large increases in area burned.”
- HEAT
WAVES: Cities that currently experience heat waves are expected to face
“an increased number, intensity, and duration of heat waves,”
threatening people’s health, particularly that of elder Americans.
“This
report reaffirms that Colorado and the West have much to lose unless
our leaders take action, “said Matt Baker, Executive Director of
Environment Colorado. “Colorado
will face decreasing snowpack hurting recreation and tourism economies
in the winter and unreliable water supplies ailing agriculture in the
summer. Colorado will also see longer, more-intense wildfire seasons.”
In
addition, the report points to large-scale climate events that have the
potential to “cause very large impacts,” including the at least partial
deglaciation of the Greenland ice sheet, and possibly the West
Antarctic ice sheet, raising sea levels by 13 to 20 feet over centuries
to millennia.
The IPCC today released the Summary for Policymakers
of the second volume of its Fourth Assessment Report, entitled
“Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability.” The second volume
synthesizes the peer-reviewed research on the current and predicted
impacts of global warming on human health, the environment, and
wildlife. Additional volumes, examining options for reducing future
warming and a final synthesis report, are due out later this year. The
full Fourth Assessment Report includes input from more than 2,500
experts worldwide.
The
IPCC was established by the United Nations Environmental Program and
the World Meteorological Organization in 1988 with a mandate to assess
the state of knowledge on global warming on a “comprehensive,
objective, open and transparent basis” and to generate documents that
reflect a consensus among those involved. In 1990, 1995, and 2001, the
IPCC issued its prior assessments.
Baker
also noted that the report is inherently conservative because it
reflects the consensus of hundreds of parties, including industry
groups and governments opposed to taking action to reduce global
warming pollution.
