Planning for the third degree (COP 14)

06 Dec 2008 – Geoff Lye

Given my conclusion (see blog of a meeting with Bill Kyte last week) that we are far more likely to hit three degrees of warming than two, I was reminded of a meeting I had in Oxford recently with Mark Lynas. He is the author of Six Degrees which outlines the implications of each degree of warming. At three degrees, they are profound – consider some of the likely effects he describes:

• Permanent El Nino, with worldwide weather shifts
• Collapse of Amazon rainforest
• Eventual total disappearance of Greenland ice sheet
• Near-extinction of tropical coral reefs
• New spreading deserts in western United States and southern Africa
• Stronger hurricanes across the tropics
• Global net food deficit with grain prices soaring
• Crippling water shortages in western South America and Australia
• Extinction for between a third and half of all life on Earth

Much of the talk at Poznan in relation to adaptation has (understandably) focused on the developing countries who will be in the front live of climate change and worst placed to cope. But the likely affects of three degrees on developed countries is being overlooked in the process. With two grandchildren who should reasonably expect to live to 2100 (climate change apart), I find it extraordinary that we struggle to create the political will to deliver a two degree world. Time for intergenerational apologies?