Tiempo Climate Newswatch

The third Major Economies Meeting, an initiative launched by the White House last year, took place in Paris, April 17-18th 2008. Prior to the event, United States president, George W Bush, called for a halt in domestic emissions growth, but not until the year 2025. The announcement was greeted with widespread outrage. Describing the proposal as "particularly disappointing". Marthinus van Schalkwyk, South Africa's minister for environment and tourism said that "it seems as if the current United States administration wants to turn back the clock to where we were before the breakthrough achieved in Bali in December 2007."

There are fewer fears now that the White House initiative will undermine the ongoing process under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). "Countries are very much attuned to making sure that these processes do not begin to tumble over each other," said Yvo de Boer of the UNFCCC secretariat. The White House series of meetings is viewed as a less formal opportunity to discuss ideas and proposals than presented by the United Nations forum. The Paris meeting was, however, characterized by deep-seated clashes, particularly between the United States and the European Union, regarding just how severe cuts in greenhouse gas emissions should be. "We achieved a consensus on the need for long-term and medium-term goals for reducing greenhouse-house gases... but we have not quantified targets at this stage and we regret this," reported Jean-Pierre Jouyet, French secretary of state for European affairs. Further meetings will be held in May and June, with the aim of reaching agreement by the time of the Group of Eight summit in Japan in July 2008.

Changes in world farming in order to limit regional food shortages, increasing food prices and environmental impacts have been called for by sixty countries, with the support of the World Bank and United Nations agencies. The call stems from a landmark report from the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), released this month. According to Bob Watson, IAASTD director, "business as usual will hurt the poor. It will not work. We have to applaud global increases in food production but not everyone has benefited. We have not succeeded globally. In some parts of India, 50 per cent of children are still malnourished."

"Food is cheaper and diets are better than 40 years ago, but malnutrition and food insecurity threaten millions," according to the report's authors. "The unequal distribution of food, and conflict over control of the world's dwindling natural resources, presents a major political and social challenge to governments, likely to reach crisis status as climate change advances and world population expands from 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion by 2050," they conclude. The report has yet to be endorsed by Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. There are objections, on the part of some countries, to the conclusion that genetically-modified foods are not a quick fix to the problem of world hunger. The report also expresses reservations about trade liberalization. "Opening national markets to international competition can offer economic benefits but can lead to long-term negative effects on poverty alleviation, food security and the environment without basic national institutions and infrastructure being place," it states.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has seriously underestimated the threat of sea-level rise, according to Svetlana Jevrejeva of the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool in the United Kingdom. A new 2000-year reconstruction of sea levels suggests that the rapid rise in the 20th century was the result of melting ice sheets: ice sheets become more mobile and disappear faster as meltwater increases. Jevrejeva and her colleagues argue that ice dynamics, such as this, will play a critical role in determining the future scale of sea-level rise. The IPCC assessment neglected the contribution of ice dynamics as its role is poorly understood. The researchers predict that global sea level could rise by 0.8 to 1.5m by the end of the present century, close to three times the IPCC estimate.

The average rate of melting and thinning of 30 reference glaciers in nine mountain ranges more than doubled between the years 2004-5 and 2005-6, according to the latest data from the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) in Zurich, Switzerland. "The latest figures are part of what appears to be an accelerating trend with no apparent end in sight," commented Wilfried Haeberli, WGMS director. Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, noted that "millions if not billions of people depend directly or indirectly on these natural water storage facilities for drinking water, agriculture, industry and power generation during key parts of the year." "There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine," he continued. "The glaciers are perhaps among those making the most noise and it is absolutely essential that everyone sits up and takes notice."