The fight to combat climate change has risen to a new level with the publication of a report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report warns of major consequences for failure, with severe implications for the future which according to the report involves food shortages and more conflict over resources.
The report has concluded that climate change is already having a real and substantial effect on the environment and on the way people live. The panel reported on some of the devastating effects that range from melting sea ice, the destruction of coral reefs in the pacific and deadly heat waves. The panel has also predicted that the worse is yet to come and that climate change poses a real danger to human security and that no one will be untouched by these problems.
The report has taken three years to produce and has been contributed too by over three hundred scientists and runs to 2,600 pages and has double the volumes of the last IPCC report. The report is one of the most comprehensive and detailed to be produced by the IPCC. The word risk was featured over two hundred times in the report which underlines the theme of the report. The main risk cited was a humanitarian one, with the threat of substantial humanitarian crisis being driven by a degrading environment. The report went into detail about some of the major environmental disasters that have occurred over the last fifteen years and how climate change is driving them to occur more frequently. Some of the examples they cited were the Australian wildfires, Pakistan floods and deadly European heat waves. One of the reports main contributors stated that climate change was not a future hypothetical situation, but that it is here in the present having an effect on the way we live right now.
These extreme weather events are also expected to take a disproportionate toll on the poor, weak and elderly and that no systems have been put in place to protect people that fall into vulnerable demographics.
The warnings signs over climate change have been around for some time and have gathered greater significance as we begin to understand climate changes potential impact. The report for the first time clearly connects climate change to the potential and real threat of food shortages and conflicts over resources. An example given was that of crop yields like wheat, which have begun to decline as global warming takes hold raising concerns about food production keeping up with population growth.
The report also links the rise in food prices with greater political tension in Africa and Asia after food price shocks caused riots in 2008.
The scientists who published the report say that is past time that greenhouse gas emissions were cut and that governments and the public need to take action now to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Governments, communities and individuals can start to make a difference through ventures such as renewable energy, recycling, and cleaner, leaner and greener living.
For more information on how to obtain freedom from rising energy prices and to help the environment view our renewable energy information pages.