THE BIGGER & BIGGER IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Scientists warn of climate-change onslaught
Monica McNeal, March 29, 2012 (WSAV-TV/NBC)

"Global warming is leading to such severe storms, droughts and heat waves that nations should prepare for an unprecedented onslaught of deadly and costly weather disasters. The greatest threat from extreme weather is to highly populated, poor regions of the world, the report warns, but no corner of the globe — from Mumbai to Miami — is immune. The document by a Nobel Prize-winning panel of climate scientists forecasts stronger tropical cyclones and more frequent heat waves, deluges and droughts.

"The 594-page [The IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation, previewed last November and now released in full,] blames the scale of recent and future disasters on a combination of man-made climate change, population shifts and poverty…In the past, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, founded in 1988 by the United Nations, has focused on the slow inexorable rise of temperatures and oceans as part of global warming…[This is the first time it looked] at the less common but far more noticeable extreme weather changes, which lately have been costing on average about $80 billion a year in damage…"

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"The report specifically points to New Orleans during 2005’s Hurricane Katrina…In coastal areas of the United States, property damage from hurricanes and rising seas could increase by 20 percent by 2030…And in parts of Texas, the area vulnerable to storm surge could more than double by 2080…Already U.S. insured losses from weather disasters have soared from an average of about $3 billion a year in the 1980s to about $20 billion a year in the last decade, even after adjusting for inflation…Globally, the scientists say that some places, particularly parts of Mumbai in India, could become uninhabitable from floods, storms and rising seas…Other cities at lesser risk include Miami, Shanghai, Bangkok, China’s Guangzhou, Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City, Myanmar’s Yangon (formerly known as Rangoon) and India’s Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta). The people of small island nations, such as the Maldives, may also need to abandon their homes because of rising seas and fierce storms…

"IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri…[said] that while all countries are hurt by increased climate extremes, the overwhelming majority of deaths occur in poorer, less developed places. Yet, it is wealthy nations that produce more greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, raising the issue of fairness…"