We seek to to promote awareness about Environmental Refugees and petition the UNHCR and Industrialized nations to recognize the legal status of those displaced by Climate Change so that they may seek asylum as refugees.
Results tagged “Environmental Refugees” from Program to Relocate and Assist Environmental Refugees
By Wade Norris . on October 21, 2009 5:50 PM
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To: President of the United States and the United Nations
We the undersigned ask President Obama to sign an Executive Order
recognizing people displaced by Climate Change as Environmental
Refugees and grant these Environmental Refugees asylum in the United
States as permitted by Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution and the
laws of the United States of America.
We also ask United Nations Secretary General to call a special
session of the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees to change
the legal status of people displaced by Climate Change from 'Migrants'
to 'Refugees' so that these displaced Refugees may seek asylum in other
countries around the world.
By Wade Norris . on October 21, 2009 5:45 PM
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To: President of the United States and the United Nations
We the undersigned ask President Obama to sign an Executive Order
recognizing people displaced by Climate Change as Environmental
Refugees and grant these Environmental Refugees asylum in the United
States as permitted by Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution and the
laws of the United States of America.
We also ask United Nations Secretary General to call a special
session of the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees to change
the legal status of people displaced by Climate Change from 'Migrants'
to 'Refugees' so that these displaced Refugees may seek asylum in other
countries around the world.
By Wade Norris . on October 15, 2009 1:23 PM
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Great news here! Oil companies are going to have a great opportunity to drill in the Arctic Sea Floor to find more fossil fuels, because the Arctic Circle will soon be Ice Free in the Summers - making it very cost effective for drilling the last place we have not drilled for more oil.
So be happy! Gas prices are going to go down, you can invest in more profitable oil stocks, shipping lanes will open giving a shorter route than Panama, which will also increase transportation and thus increase oil consumption. It is a real win win for America!
And heck, you can invest in Beach front property in the Arctic. Just this past summer because the sea ice was missing, kids in the Arctic circle could go swimming with the temps in the mid 80's.
Oh wait, you are wondering if there is any downside to this news? Well, just a few things... but don't continue reading if you want to make your money guilt free...
So what if the Arctic becomes Ice Free in the Summer - what's the big deal?
For starters, once the Arctic Ice opened in 2007 with the arrival of the long sought Northwest passage, something significant was set in motion that had an exponential effect. The Ice had been blocking currents from the Atlantic and Pacific from entering the Arctic circle, but once they did encroach upon the Arctic, they brought in significantly warmer currents, starting a feedback loop of warming. This was an affect that scientists had not anticipated as little as a decade ago, which is why all the models for climate change are being drastically revised with shocking changes due to occur in years and decades instead of centuries.
And this from Martin Sommerkorn of the World Wildlife Fund:
"Such a loss of Arctic sea ice cover has recently been assessed to set in motion powerful climate feedbacks which will have an impact far beyond the Arctic itself. This could lead to flooding affecting one-quarter of the world's population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions from massive carbon pools and extreme global weather changes."
This video done by Al Jazeera on Greenpeace reports on the new phenomena of tropic temperature water in the Arctic.
And what does this mean for the Indigenous Arctic peoples?
For the first time, people in the Arctic are reporting changes in the types of fish they catch and birds they see in their regions, with species of both fish and birds arriving from temperate climates. Native wildlife such as walrus, seals and polar bears are all becoming thinner and scarcer. Most alarming is the new presence of the sound of thunder, which is usually foreign in the Arctic circle.
Elders of these areas, have told oral folk myths, one of which warns that should the ice ever disappear during the summer, their way of life will end. This has been, until recently, a myth that seemed impossible, with the vast expanse of sea ice seeming to last forever.
For some, like the Kivalina of the coast of Alaska, the changes also include losing the very land they live on.
There is also the fact that islanders around the world will also become the world's first wave of Environmental Refugees, losing their land, national identity, and way of life through relocation to a mainland continent.
But that might take at least 10 years for some islanders and decades for others, so no rush right?
The majority of countries won't be affected right?
Well, there is the fact that this heating is destabilizing the Ice Caps on Greenland from the heating Arctic weather pattern.
What does that mean?
In Greenland, and to a lesser extent, Antarctica, ice sheets and glaciers are melting and more importantly, sliding in rapid bursts. This is caused by moulins, which are holes that melting water form from the top of a glacier to the bottom. The water then lubricates and melts the underside of the glacier, causing them to detach from the bedrock -- and creating a 'slip-n-slide' for glaciers that weigh in the megatons -- some the size of Manhattan.
Robert Corell, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, said in Ilulissat [Greenland] yesterday: "We have seen a massive acceleration of the speed with which these glaciers are moving into the sea. The ice is moving at 2 meters an hour on a front 5km [3 miles] long and 1,500 meters deep. That means that this one glacier puts enough fresh water into the sea in one year to provide drinking water for a city the size of London for a year."
The glacier is now moving at 15km a year into the sea although in surges it moves even faster. He measured one surge at 5km in 90 minutes - an extraordinary event.
The result, each 'slide' of these multi-ton glaciers sets off an 'ice quake' that register an average of 3 to 5 on the Richter scale. This might sound minor, but these are occurring multiple times a year. This means that the Earth is being jolted repeatedly by these ice quakes, destabilizing faults lines which has many, many consequences.
The latest scientific discipline to enter the fray over global warming is geology.
And the forecasts from some quarters are dramatic - not only will the earth shake, it will spit fire.
A number of geologists say glacial melting due to climate change will unleash pent-up pressures in the Earth's crust, causing extreme geological events such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.
A cubic metre of ice weighs nearly a tonne and some glaciers are more than a kilometre thick. When the weight is removed through melting, the suppressed strains and stresses of the underlying rock come to life.
(from Alan Glazner, a volcano specialist at the University of North Carolina)
"When you melt glacial ice, several hundred metres to a kilometre thick . . . you've decreased the load on the crust and so you've decreased the pressure holding the volcanic conduits closed.
"They're cracks, that's how magmas gets to the surface . . . and where they hit the surface, that's where you get a volcano."
And it is not likely to slow down, but may instead speed up:
...quakes ranged from six to 15 per year from 1993 to 2002, then jumped to 20 in 2003, 23 in 2004, and 32 in the first 10 months of 2005 - matching an increase in Greenland temperatures.
"(Professor Taira) and his team studied repeating earthquakes because they provided a "background frequency" against which changes in the fault could be compared.
"These events happen regularly and the size of the event is about the same," he told BBC News.
"But after Sumatra (in 2004) the frequency changed - it increased - but the magnitude decreased.
"That is a signal of the fault weakening; you only have to push a little bit and the fault fails."
This fault that the team is studying, one that has weakened significantly since the Boxer Day earthquake and Tsunami in Sumatra, is the San Andreas Fault.
Well, it is not so bad, look on the bright side. You can vacation to Glacier National Park and you will be able to tell your kids and grandkids about what it was like to see a Glacier in the park.
Or you can book a cruise to the Arctic and watch calving glaciers - lots of fun!
Hooray! What fun!!!!
Whatever, invest while you can, before this oil opportunity passes you by!
Profits are always more important than human life.
Or you can get involved.
By Wade Norris . on October 8, 2009 5:40 PM
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When will the time come that Climate Change talks will start considering Human Rights over Business rights?
There is a growing group of people in our world who are in a legal limbo,
Environmental Refugees.
Even though there are hundreds to thousands of people currently being displaced by Climate Change, they do not have a defined status as a group, hence they are not really 'refugees.'
And according to current predictions by Oxfam International, by 2050 there will be 75 million Environmental Refugees displaced due to Climate Change. Other models are predicting up to 250 million people.
This wide disparity in ranges is because we still don't know how wrong our Climate Change models will turn out to be, as evidenced by the updated 2009 IPCC report (Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change) which is drastically worse than scientific estimates by the IPCC in 2007.
Morally, we must look at who is responsible for the millions of people who will lose their homes and way of life and look to solutions as well.
According to the definition by UN High Commissioner on Refugees, (UNHCR) a Refugee is someone either inside or outside their national borders fleeing persecution due to their affiliation with their social group - for instance ethic, religious, political etc.
But a person whose island is swallowed up by rising sea level has no rights under Refugee law, in fact, they are considered 'Migrants' meaning they are 'voluntarily' leaving their country.
A great example of this in current Governmental policy is with the eruption of Soufriere Hills Volcano in Plymouth, Montserrat in the 1990's and continuing through today.
In that situation, the US and UK issued temporary humanitarian visas for people to leave that island under the legal provision of 'non-refoulement.' (This is also the provision that calls on governments not to return a person to a country where they may be tortured or killed.)
However, after the eruptions kept continuing, the U.S. revoked the temporary visas and issued a statement saying that because the volcano was an "ongoing situation" and "no longer temporary", that they were no longer eligible to stay in the US under the temporary humanitarian visas. The United Kingdom has done the same for the people from Montserrat in their country. In both countries, many of the Montserrat people displaced by the Volcano are simply overstaying their visas and trying to avoid deportation.
Professors Andy Pittman, Pr. Jane McAdam and Anna Samson of the University of New South Wales explain this issue in this video. (an hour video)
As I have written before, displacement due to volcanoes or earthquakes is likely to get worse due to the rising number of Ice Quakes in Greenland.
The United Nations
The first choice would be to get the United Nations to expand the charter of who is covered under the current definition of a Refugee.
Right now, perhaps the best person to speak to this issue is President Mohamed Nasheed of the island nation of Maldives. The Maldives is home to 350,000 people, all living at 8 feet above sea level. With current models showing a 6 to 9 foot rise by 2100, President Nasheed has decided not to wait for the Governments of the world to act, but has gone on a speaking tour around the world and before the UN to make arguments for curbing emissions and for money for relocation. He has even gone so far as to have his cabinet get SCUBA training in order to have a full government cabinet meeting underwater to emphasize the threat of sea level rise due to Climate Change.
The same is true of Ursula Rakova of the Carterets who has formed a non-profit called Tulele Peisa which means "Sailing the Waves on Our Own" and seeks to empower the Carteret people to raise money for relocation, and has been advocating on her people's behalf.
I have hope that there will be enough momentum to get something legal status established this year at Copenhagen.
Roadblocks at the UN
Right now there are already staggering numbers of Refugees that need help.
10 million traditional refugees,
13 million refugees displaced within their own borders,
6 million refugees who were considered 'stateless'
1 million 'people of concern'
Add to that the costs associated with Climate Change.
The U.N. Development Program estimated that industrialized nations must provide $86 billion a year by 2015 for people most vulnerable to catastrophic floods, droughts and other disasters that scientists fear will accompany warming.
As a realist I know that the United Nations will have a hard enough task in just getting the Industrialized Nations to agree on a global emissions plan at Copenhagen.
Tackling that issue as well as addressing status of Environmental Refugees may be too big, but we can hope.
Government Intervention
At some point, the Governments of the world are going to have to get involved.
What is the hold up for giving people displaced by Climate Change 'refugee' status?
It is simple. If you establish that people displaced by climate change are refugees, then the governments of the world are compelled to aid them and/or to stop them from becoming refugees.
Right now, it is a big leap to say that a wave washing over your island is a form of persecution, but the practices of the Industrialized countries through pollution, are in fact, the source of this persecution.
If this was established as international law, then Governments would have to cease and desist from engaging in this persecution, namely by no longer using contributing to the problem of Greenhouse gases.
This is a place where fossil fuel companies like Coal and Big Oil do not want to go. Think of the Waxman - Markey Climate legislation, which has 60 Billion dollars in Coal industry tax subsidies.
If Environmental Refugees were given status, then that type of tax subsidy could make the US a participant in state sponsored persecution.
Additionally, Senators taking lobbyist money from these industries could be stigmatized as caring more for profits than for human lives.
The other main issue is cost. Governments around the world are dealing with a recession, so who is willing to step up and pay for humanitarian aid such as water purification, food, and the most costly, relocation?
And where will the people be relocated to? Immigration is already a touchy subject in this country as well as many other Industrialized nations.
My argument is one that is based on the Civil Rights movement. Industrialized nations are causing the problem, therefore they should pay the costs and lead the way to reform.
But that is just one idea.
Traditional Litigation
There is a pending case centered on Environmental Refugees off of the coast of Alaska. This is the Kivalina Islanders lawsuit - which was reported in this article in the Atlantic.
This legal argument in this case on behalf of the U.S. Citizens living on Kivalina, is that much like the Tobacco companies conspired to hide documents proving they knew Tobacco was bad for a person's health, the Fossil Fuel industries and energy companies also have conspired to deny climate change even though the have evidence otherwise.
In February, Berman and Susman--along with two attorneys who have previously worked on behalf of the village, and Matt Pawa, an environmental lawyer specializing in global warming--filed suit in federal court against 24 oil, coal, and electric companies, claiming that their emissions are partially responsible for the coastal destruction in Kivalina. More important, the suit also accuses eight of the firms (American Electric Power, BP America, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Duke Energy, ExxonMobil, Peabody Energy, and Southern Company) of conspiring to cover up the threat of man-made climate change, in much the same way the tobacco industry tried to conceal the risks of smoking--by using a series of think tanks and other organizations to falsely sow public doubt in an emerging scientific consensus.
Sowing public doubt is exactly what Industry shills have been doing, and throughout the Bush administration, scientific evidence proving Climate Change was redacted to leave room for doubt about whether or not Climate Change was real.
Another one of the roadblocks in the handful of Climate Change related lawsuits has been the defense citing the Political Question Doctrine - which is summed up in this case as well.
(Environmental) Lawsuits in California, Mississippi, and New York have been dismissed by judges who say a ruling would require them to balance the perils of greenhouse gases against the benefits of fossil fuels--something best handled by legislatures.
In other words, industry defendants have argued and so far, judges have agreed that the political process and legislatures should handle this issue, not the courts.
In September, I had the opportunity to be part of a panel on Environmental Refugees at an Environmental Justice conference at the University of Oregon Law School.
While I was there, I had the privilege of meeting
Brent Newell of the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment, who is a legal counsel for the Kivalina people.
At that time he was watching a court of appeals decision which could strengthen the Kivalina's case.
I am glad to announce that as of September 21, 2009,
the Second Circuit made an important decision on a case known as
Connecticut vs American Electric Power.
Without going into too much detail, this was a case several groups like the Audubon society were trying to stop coal plant emissions because it was harming the value of their land trusts. The lower court ruled as other courts have, that Climate Change was part of the political realm, not the courts.
However, the appellate court overturned this decision on the grounds that the Energy company were causing a public nuisance, and nuisance cases have been heard by courts for decades.
"Nowhere in their complaints do plaintiffs ask the court to fashion a comprehensive and far-reaching solution to global climate change, a task that arguably falls within the purview of the political branches. Instead, they seek to limit emissions from six domestic coal-fired electricity plants on the ground that such emissions constitute a public nuisance that they allege has caused, is causing and will continue to cause them injury."
This is a huge decision, one that will help strengthen the case on behalf of the Kivalina people and could keep the judge from dismissing the case as has happened in other states.
If the Kivalina Islanders win their case, then a precedent will be set, opening polluting companies up to liability for public nuisance.
So good news, right?
Unfortunately, this case also demonstrates the problem with our legal system - the wheels of Justice turn very slow. The Connecticut vs American Electric Power was started in 2006 and surely will be appealed to the Supreme court.
Or take for instance the Exxon Valdez. That accident which happened in 1989, and in which everyone could see was clearly Exxon's fault, was just decided last year, when the Supreme Court ruled to reduce damages from 2.5 billion to 500 million. Now you might be ticked that a company that raked in 40 billion that same year gets a reduction in the amount of punitive damages, but the key here is not the money, it is the time. 19 years. 19 years for Justice.
Our neighbors living on low lying islands, people who are living the closest to a sustainable lifestyle and who have contributed the least to carbon emissions, do not have 19 years to wait for justice.
Some islands will be submerged or uninhabitable before 2020.
In addition to meeting the legal counsel for the Kivalina, I also got to meet Professor Maxine Burkett, of the University of Hawaii Law school.
I would say that she and I had the most similar view on this issue.
Her view on a remedy for the Environmental Refugees was to address this issue based on the model of reparations.
This model has 3 basic requirements.
1) An apology from the offending party for the action or harm.
2) Monetary compensation for losses caused by the action or harm.
3) A guarantee that this action or harm will not happen again.
This last requirement is the essential point.
If, for instance, you were to win lawsuits against polluters, then you would probably only get monetary compensation, but the pollution would probably still continue in other parts of the world.
With the reparations model, the pollution, which is the harmful action, would need to cease. And since pollution is worldwide, this would be the end of the fossil fuel industry as we know it.
These are just some of the scenarios for getting justice for Environmental Refugees.
Internationally, this is a situation where definitions matter. Definitions like Refugee, as in Environmental Refugee, or Genocide, as in Environmental Genocide.
By keeping people displaced by Climate Change in a category of 'Migrant', governments are let off the hook to do anything about the cause.
There are millions of people who can't wait for the right political will to exist for them to have legal status.
What you can do
Get involved with the Islanders directly - such as the Carteret Islander's facebook support page
Stop by AVAAZ's climate page and get involved.
Stop by our website or become a member of our facebook page.
Talk to your elected representatives about the need for President Obama to
issue an Executive Order recognizing the rights of Environmental Refugees.
DIVEST from any stock or mutual fund portfolios that include fossil fuel companies and invest in Green companies or funds like Calvert Investments.
If Divesting could change South Africa, perhaps it can change the world.
There are many solutions, such as converting your
car from gas to electric.
There are also ways to adapt to overcome this problem - I think this one is particularly promising.
But we can't simply plan to adapt without first stopping the cause - business as usual won't work.
Also I would appreciate your suggestions here in this venue, so that it can be added to the efforts.
Perhaps if these avenues are pursued, the definition of 'Environmental Refugee' will no longer be in limbo, and will be equated with Justice.
NO ISLAND LEFT BEHIND
By Wade Norris . on September 24, 2009 3:06 PM
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I love living in the Mile High City of Denver - I love that since I have moved here in 2000, we have turned from a 'red state' to a purple or even blue state.
I even am willing to give Josh McDaniels a little props for the Broncos getting to 2-0.
Denver is a great city with the great outdoors and the Rocky Mountains just a 20 minute drive away.
But this information reported today, makes me sad and mad with Denver.
Denver released the largest amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) and Barcelona the smallest amount in a new study documenting how differences in climate, population density and other factors affect GHG emissions in global cities.
Now living in a city that is this beautiful, it is hard to believe that we beat out Los Angeles for pollution.
Denver had the highest overall GHG emissions, with levels two to five times higher than other cities. Its high levels were due partly to its high use of electricity, heating and industrial fuels, and ground transportation, they note - Los Angeles was second on the list...
What if a city's reputation for pollution was reflected in the Sports team's names?
Instead of the Denver Broncos we would be the Denver Bronchitis?
It really should give the leaders of our state's energy policy pause, in light of global warming's threat to the 2 billion dollar Colorado skiing and tourism industry, when deciding on how to power our state and what Denver emits.
Anyone visiting Colorado Rockies can already see the 2 million Pine trees that are dead or dying due to Pine Beetles - an epidemic many scientist attribute to global warming.
The voters have proven that they want alternative energy - and they proved so by passing approving Amendment 37 in 2004 - the first bill in the nation to require a percentage of the state's energy sources be derived from renewable energy.
The time is now to call on our elected leaders like the Mayor and the Governor to change the way we power our city.
And it is not just about Colorado, while our pollution is 'just' killing our trees in Colorado, it is robbing others of the world's citizens their very way of life.
the time to act is now - even if you are not from Colorado - we are all in this together - contact your Senator to support Climate Change legislation like Waxman-Markey a.k.a ACES
As I have written previously, even though ACES is not perfect,especially when it comes to coal - we must go to Copenhagen with some kind of climate bill to get some real action globally started for their sakes.
By Wade Norris . on September 21, 2009 2:20 PM
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This is a global wake up call on Climate Change this is a map of the theaters hosting the events. map see here AVAAZ Global Wake Up Call
The Global Wake-Up Call Is here!
On 21 September 2009, at more
than 2200 events in 128 countries across the globe, an unstoppable
global movement is issuing a wake-up call to world leaders on climate
change! Call our leader now--you
can select your country from the list at left, and the numbers will
appear. Be polite but firm; leave a message urging your leader to
travel to Copenhagen for the climate talks in December and sign a fair,
ambitious, and binding climate treaty!
If you went to an event, post a note about it below, and email photos or video to photos@avaaz.org (or upload here). And if you make a phone call--post a message below about who you called and what happened. If you keep getting a busy signal, that's a good sign: it means our global wake-up calls are flooding the lines, and our message is getting through!
• The June-August worldwide ocean surface temperature was also the
warmest on record at 62.5 degrees F, 1.04 degrees F above the 20th
century average of 61.5 degrees F.
.....
• The worldwide ocean surface temperature of 62.4 degrees F was the
warmest on record for any August, and 1.03 degrees F above the 20th
century average of 61.4 degrees F.
August warmth in the southern hemisphere broke all time records.
• The Southern Hemisphere average temperatures for land and ocean surface combined were the warmest on record for August.
This August was the second warmest on record for land and water just
behind the super El Nino year of 1998. The cooling effects of the deep
solar minimum, the quietest sun in 100 years, were not able to
counteract the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gases and a weak to
moderate El Nino.
NCDC scientists also reported that the combined average global land
and ocean surface temperature for August was second warmest on record,
behind 1998. For the June-August 2009 season, the combined global land
and ocean surface temperature was third warmest on record.
SST Anomalies for August 31, 2009 By NOAA FishOutofWater
I'm enjoying warm water temperatures on vacation body surfing at
Cape Hatteras this week. The Gulf Stream has been exceptionally warm.
The warm temperatures let me stay in the water comfortably for 5 hours
yesterday without a wet suit. However, warm water temperatures are
creating hot spots that threaten the health of coral reefs and
temperature sensitive marine organisms. The intense hot spots off of
central America and western Africa pose severe threats to coral reefs
there.
The warm Atlantic temperatures have not led to an active Atlantic
hurricane season because El Nino has caused strong westerly winds at
high levels, shearing storms as they approach the north American side
of the Atlantic ocean. However, I enjoying surfing waves from hurricane
Fred yesterday that were generated before it was torn apart by wind
shear.
I suspect that the Pacific ocean is having a very intense hurricane/typhoon season this year because the waters are so warm.
How much energy we're getting from the Sun is no longer the most important thing governing the temperature of the Arctic.
I was glad to hear about the following below:
From the President of Maldives, at the sneak preview of the movie "Age of Stupid" staring Pete Postlewaite, which provides a bleak view of our future should we not act to stop Climate Change.
From the President Nahseed:
and a clip from the movie:
I hope this movie will help motivate more action at the Copenhagen summit.
More from the BBC on the warming arctic and a statement Secretary General Ban Ki Moon:
Much debate on climate change has centred on the Mediaeval Warm Period, or Mediaeval Climate Anomaly - a period about 1,000 years ago when, historical records suggest, Vikings colonised Greenland and may have grown grapes in Newfoundland.
The new analysis shows that temperatures were indeed warmer in this region 1,000 years ago than they were 100 years ago - but not as warm as they are now, or 1,000 years previously.
"It shows that the Mediaeval Warm Period is real, and is... an exception from the general trend of cooling," commented Eystein Jansen from Bergen University in Norway, who was not involved in the research.
"It also shows there's lots of variability on the 100-year timescale, and that's probably more so in the Arctic than elsewhere."
Professor Jansen was a co-ordinating lead author on the palaeoclimate (ancient climate) chapter of the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment
This is the excuse I have heard from Climate Change Deniers: that these cooling and heating trends are the Earth's natural patterns - often citing the warming period where the Vikings settled Greenland 1000 years ago.
It seems like these Climate Scientists finally decided to focus on the Denier's claims and research that issue.
There is no doubt this refutes that claim.
As the Science study emerged, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was telling the World Climate Conference in Geneva that many of the "more distant scenarios" forecast by climate scientists were "happening now".
Earlier this week, Mr Ban visited the Arctic in an attempt to gain first-hand experience of how the region is changing.
"Scientists have been accused for years of scaremongering. But the real scaremongers are those who say we cannot afford climate action," he said in his Geneva speech, calling for world leaders to make bigger pledges of action in the run-up to December's UN climate summit in Copenhagen.
Bravo Secretary General - let's hope our leaders hear this loud and clear.
THE
world has fallen well behind in the race to find a formula to deal with
global warming in time for December's Copenhagen summit, regional
leaders have warned.
After their two-day summit in Cairns, 15
Pacific Islands Forum leaders issued a statement saying the threat was
grave and a strong global agreement was vital.
"With 122 days
to go, the international community is not on track to achieve the
outcome we need unless we see a renewed mandate across all
participating nations," the leaders said.
Chaired by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, the forum urged all nations to redouble their efforts to secure an agreement.
The
leaders called for a program that would set the world on a path to
limit the increase in global temperatures to 2 degrees or less and to
cut global emissions to at least 50 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050.
The
forum nations are part of the Alliance of Small Island States, 39
nations in the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean that are
likely to be the first - and worst - affected, by global warming.
The
alliance was set up in 1990 to provide a voice for small nations, and
it says that unless the increase in temperature is kept below 1.5
degrees the result will be disastrous for millions of people on those
islands.
Grenada's representative to the United Nations and the alliance leader, Dessima Williams, told the Herald the impact on dozens of low-lying nations would be disastrous.
"We are going to have more devastation of all sorts from sea level rise and hurricanes," Ms Williams said.
"We are going to lose our jobs, our food supply.
"The
world is going to see disruption that starts from the small island
states. It will be disruption of every sort, more health problems,
economic dislocation and more migration."
As well as the
climate change plea, the 16 nations are to pool their experiences with
energy sources including solar, wind and wave power generation, with
Australia putting $25 million into the initiative.
The forum
leaders also agreed to pursue common development strategies fostered by
growth in the private sector, better state services and governance and
investment in infrastructure, and to get aid-donating countries and
organisations to co-ordinate their programs with these strategies.
The
Pacific Island countries receive the highest amount of foreign aid in
the developing world per capita, but Mr Rudd said many were not showing
progress towards the Millennium goals of greater welfare by 2015 and
some were regressing.
"It is a sobering fact that across our region some 2.7 million people are living in poverty," he said.
Governments
in the Pacific were frustrated at the "spaghetti bowl" of aid programs,
Mr Rudd said, with half of their officials "offshore running around in
various programs being offered by dozens of competing and occasionally
conflicting development assistance programs".
He hoped China would also align its aid programs in the Pacific - put at $US208 million ($247 million) in pledges last year.
CAIRNS, Australia -- A group of tiny Pacific Island countries
appealed to the world Wednesday to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 45
percent to help save them from rising seas.
The seven nations, whose coral atolls rise just a few yards (meters)
above sea level, urged rich nations to make the cut in their polluting
emissions by 2020.
"As you drive along the roads along
the coast, you will see coconut trees in the water - that's an
indication of the sea level rise" in Tuvalu, Prime Minister Edward
Natapei told reporters Wednesday at the annual summit of South Pacific
leaders. At least one village has been abandoned, he said.
The seven countries, part of the 16-member Pacific Islands Forum,
said in a statement they are worried about the "serious and growing
threat posed by climate change to the economic, social, cultural and
environmental well-being and security" of their populations.
Prof
Bhawan Singh agreed with much of what Chu had to say but thought his
comments of the Caribbean islands being washed away "somewhat strong".
But he pointed to a troubling finding:
Sea-level rise in the Gulf of Paria appeared to be happening faster
than the global average, which indicated that the land was sinking.
Of Chu's summit statement, Singh said:
"The latest (2007) IPCC Report does substantiate his claim of a
two-to-four-degree-Celsius rise of global, near-surface temperatures by
the end of this century, depending on which forcing of the climate
system is used, namely, based on the rate of increase of greenhouse
gases globally.
"The link between climate
change/global warming and sea-level rise resides in the thermal
expansion of oceanic water, the melting of sub-polar ice fields in
mountainous areas such as the Andes and the Himalayas and the melting
of the polar ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica.
"As an indication of the potential contributions of the polar ice
caps to sea-level rise, if the Antarctic ice cap were to melt
completely, it would have the potential to raise sea levels by over 60
metres while the Greenland ice cap would have the potential to raise
sea levels by close to seven metres.
By Wade Norris . on April 8, 2009 3:55 PM
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By James Painter BBC
Latin America analyst
Climate change experts in North and South America are increasingly worried
by the potentially devastating implications of higher estimates for possible sea
level rises.
The Americas have until now been seen as less vulnerable than other parts of
the world like low-lying Pacific islands, Vietnam or Bangladesh.
But the increase in the ranges for anticipated sea level rises presented at a
meeting of scientists in Copenhagen in March has alarmed observers in the
region.
Parts of the Caribbean, Mexico and Ecuador are seen as most at risk. New York
City and southern parts of Florida are also thought to be particularly
vulnerable.....
A November 2008 study by UN-Habitat on the world's cities pointed out that in
most Caribbean island states, 50% of the population lives within 2km (1.2 miles)
of the coast. They would be directly affected by sea level rise and other
climate impacts.
The Bahamas, the Guyanas, Belize and Jamaica have been pin-pointed by the
World Bank as being particularly at risk from a one-metre rise.
The coastal plains around the city of Guayaquil in Ecuador, the country's
main economic hub, are also known to be vulnerable to a combination of sea level
rises, storms and sea surges.
New York would see an additional rise of about 20cm (7.8in) above the global
mean due to Amoc by the turn of the century, according to Dr Yin's research
published this year in the journal, Nature Geoscience. Florida would experience
less than 10cm (3.9in).
"A one-metre rise could be a disaster for parts of Florida, particularly in
the southern part of the state," Dr Yin told the BBC.
"Sea level rise superimposed on hurricane vulnerability makes for a very
worrying situation."
Many scientists stress that it is not too late to mitigate the possible
effects.
"We need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to reduce coastal
developments," Dr Yin says.
By Wade Norris . on April 3, 2009 11:04 AM
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GLOBAL: Getting to the bottom of sea-level rise
10 Mar 2009 18:19:38 GMT
Source: IRIN
Reuters
and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for
any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.
JOHANNESBURG, 10 March 2009 (IRIN)
- In the past few months, newspapers across the globe have been flooded
with a debate over new studies projecting a higher and faster sea-level
rise by the next century, which would sound the death-knell for
low-lying countries and coastal cities.
The debate has been fuelled by varying interpretations of the impact of
melting ice, and by a new projection of up to 1.4m in sea-level rise by
2100, rather than a 2007 projection by the authoritative
Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) of between 18cm and
59cm by that time, depending on a range of greenhouse-gas emission
scenarios
ased on IPCC's findings a sea-level rise of 50 cm projected for the
next 100 years is expected to occur mostly in the second half of the
next century, according to Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory of UK's
Natural Environment Council. "Consequently, rises of level for the next
20-30 years (your remaining lifetime) can be expected to be similar to
those for the past 30 years (of the order of 10cm)".
The impact of the sea-level rise is already unfolding. Island states
such as the Papua New Guinea are already feeling the impact: in 2005,
1,000 residents on its Carteret atoll had to be evacuated as the rising
sea level was slowly drowning their land.
"We will also see an increase in storm surges," said Robert
Bindschadler, chief scientist at the Hydrospheric and Biospheric
Sciences Laboratory of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist and oceanographer at the Potsdam
Institute for Climate Impact Research, in Germany, who made the 1.4m
projection and is attending the Copenhagen conference, said it was
"very critical" that governments take into account the new findings
"because of the long time-scale of sea-level rise".
"Once set in motion, sea-level rise is impossible to stop. The only
chance we have to limit sea-level rise to manageable levels (say, one
metre, which is severe enough) is to reduce emissions very quickly,
early in this century. Later it will be too late to do much," Rahmstorf
commented.
By Wade Norris . on March 28, 2009 12:24 PM
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"The Maldives and Kiribati highlight a hidden challenge for coping
with climate change. It's not just about slowing the emissions of
greenhouse gases. It's also about figuring out what to do for
localities threatened with the possibility of extinction from rising
ocean waters.
"They are like the canary in the coal mine in terms
of the dramatic impact of climate change on a whole civilization of
people," says Harvard University biological oceanographer James J.
McCarthy, past president of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science. "They didn't cause the problem, but they will
be among the first to feel it.""
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As mentioned in this film, the diet of the residents of this island has diminished in the past five years from planted crops and fish, to merely coconuts and fish. Food is running out, and since 1999, two islands have disappeared.
Do we really need to keep burning Coal?
By Wade Norris . on January 20, 2009 12:38 PM
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Sea levels will rise much faster than previously forecast because of the rate that glaciers and ice sheets are melting, a study has found.
Research commissioned by the US Climate Change Science Program concludes that the rises will substantially exceed forecasts that do not take into account the latest data and observations.
The adjusted outlook, announced at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, suggests that recent predictions of a rise of between 7in and 2ft over the next century are conservative.
The African islands of Seychelles today said they identified more with the threats facing Pacific islands due to climate change, more so than their own neighbours. "The Seychelles and Maldives are similar to the Pacific islands, we have the same fears," says Seychelles Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ronny Jumeau.
"We will lose 60 percent of our islands due to sea level rise, most of our neighbours do not have atolls. Although we are part of the same family we do not feel it. They do not speak the same way I do when it comes to climate change," Jumeau said. Speaking at the Development and Climate Days side event at the Conference of the Parties (COP) 14 in Poznan, Poland, Jumeau said his country fully supports the stance of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in demanding more proactive actions from developed countries.
Chief Bill Erasmus of the Arctic Athabaskan Council, and representative of the Indigenous people's movement says that preconceived imagery of countries affected by climate change does not help the cause. "When you think of the arctic you think of the melting ice caps and the polar bears, you don't really think of the people whose lives are going to change as a result," Erasmus said.
According to him indigenous people like those of the Pacific stand to lose more than their homes as a result of climate change - cultures and ancestoral ties are at stake too.
By Wade Norris . on November 16, 2008 9:29 AM
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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday ordered preparations for rising sea levels from global warming, a startling prospect for the most populous U.S. state with a Pacific Ocean coastline stretching more than 800 miles (1,290 km).
Recorded sea levels rose 7 inches (18 cm) during the 20th century in San Francisco, Schwarzenegger said in the executive order for study of how much more the sea could rise, what other consequences of global warming were coming and how the state should react.
California is considered the environmental vanguard of government in the United States, with its own standards for car pollution and a law to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, the main gas contributing to global warming.
"The longer that California delays planning and adapting to sea level rise the more expensive and difficult adaptation will be," Schwarzenegger said, ordering a report by the end of 2010.
(Reporting by Peter Henderson; Editing by Peter Cooney)
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUKTRE4AE0YC20081115?rpc=401&
By Wade Norris . on November 16, 2008 9:23 AM
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By Dev Nadkarni
As the jet turns in crisp blue equatorial skies on its approach to Kiribati's capital, Tarawa, the vulnerability of the ribbon of atolls unfolds.
It is possible to watch the tide batter the fraying edges of the 30-odd km stretch of little atolls which make up Tarawa - never more than a couple of hundred metres wide.
The collapsing state of the remote Pacific nation is clear from a drive along the single road that crosses a string of causeways as it runs through the atoll: crumbling sea walls, coconut trees shorn of fronds and fruit because of encroaching salt water and long droughts, mounds of filth lining the coastline, overcrowding uncharacteristic of Pacific islands and poverty.
The alarm bells of climate change, sea level rise and global warming have pitchforked this 33-island nation that straddles the equator on to the front pages of the global media. Experts from all over the world have come in droves in search of answers to its impending submergence. Already two small islets have gone from the map.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10539367
By Wade Norris . on November 16, 2008 9:16 AM
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Ben Doherty October 17, 2008
MORE than 700,000 Australian homes are vulnerable to rising sea levels, with up to $150 billion worth of homes, property and infrastructure at risk of seawater inundation, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.
Almost all Australians will be affected by rising sea levels, according to the Federal Government's Department of Climate Change.
"Eighty per cent of the Australian population lives in the coastal zone, and approximately 711,000 addresses are within three kilometres of the coast and less than six metres above sea level," the department said in a submission.
