UN report warns of new global warming threat
Thawing permafrost covering almost a quarter of the northern hemisphere could increase global warming when the world is already struggling to control rising greenhouse gases, according to a UN report.
The warning came as United Nations climate negotiations entered a second day, with the focus on the Kyoto Protocol – a legally-binding emissions cap that expires this year and remains the most significant international achievement in the fight against global warming.
The UN said the potential hazards of carbon dioxide and methane emissions from warming permafrost has until now not been factored into climate models.
It is calling for a special UN panel to assess the warming and for the creation of “national monitoring networks and adaptation plans” to help better understand the threat.
In the past, land with permafrost experienced thawing on the surface during summer, but now scientists are witnessing thaws up to 10 feet deep due to warmer temperatures.
The softened earth releases gases from decaying plants that have been stuck below frozen ground for millennia.
At the climate talks in Doha, Qatar, negotiations over Kyoto started. Many rich countries such as Japan, Russia and Canada have refused to endorse an extension, and talks are expected to be heated. The United States was the lone industrialised country not to join the original pact because it did not include other big greenhouse gas emitters like China.
In its current form, a pact that once incorporated all industrialised countries except the United States would now only include the European Union, Australia and several smaller countries which together account for less than 15% of global emissions.
“We want to send a very clear message. We will not accept a second commitment period that is not worth the paper that it’s written on,” Asad Rehman of the Climate Justice Now! Network told delegates. “We will not collude in a lie if that locks us into eight years of inaction and that condemns people and planet to a climate catastrophe.”
The Japanese delegation defended its decision not to sign onto a Kyoto extension, insisting it would be better to focus on coming to an agreement by 2015 that would require all countries to do their part to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2C compared to pre-industrial times.
The position of Japan and other developed countries has the potential to reignite the battles between rich and poor nations that have doomed past efforts to reach a deal. Countries like Brazil are warning that it will be difficult for poor nations to do their part if they continue watching industrialised nations shy away from legally-binding pacts like Kyoto.
