Tiempo Climate Newswatch

According to the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP), sea levels could rise by 1.6m by the year 2100. The latest assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests sea levels will probably rise by 18 to 59cm by the end of the present century, but this estimate does not incorporate the full effect of melting ice. The new AMAP assessment concludes that ice loss from Arctic glaciers, ice caps and the Greenland Ice Sheet will make a substantial contribution to the rise in sea levels.

The overall change in Arctic climate is occurring more rapidly than expected, the report observes. "The changes we see are dramatic," commented contributor Margareta Johansson from Lund University in Sweden. "And they are not coincidental. The trends are unequivocal and deviate from the norm when compared with a longer term perspective," she continued. "In our Inuit communities we are observing, with growing concern, the various changes in the weather and environment in our Arctic homelands, which are linked to the global climate changes," said Parnuna Egede, an advisor on environmental issues at the Inuit Circumpolar Council, as a conference launching the AMAP report, Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic, opened in Copenhagen. "As a species, we act like two year olds," accused James White from the University of Colorado in the United States. The world must stop acting like "hungry, uncontrollable toddlers" - it's time to shape up and get serious, he said.

A series of legal actions, aiming to have the atmosphere declared a "public trust" deserving special protection, are being filed in the United States on behalf of children and young people. The campaign is being led by Our Children's Trust, a non-profit organization based in Oregon.

16-year-old Alec Loorz from California is named as a plaintiff and is helping run the legal campaign, finding teenagers across the country to sign onto the lawsuits. "The legislative and executive branches of our government have failed us," he said. "People have been trying to push for real change at the legislative level for a long time, and nothing has worked. That's why we're going after it through the judicial branch of government."

Renewable energies are set to surge by 2050 and costs cuts will result from expected advances in technology, a draft report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes. Based on a review of 164 energy scenarios, the assessment will be released this week at an IPCC meeting in Abu Dhabi.

"The cost of most renewable energy technologies has declined, and significant additional technical advancements are expected," the draft report states. "Further cost reductions are expected, resulting in greater potential for climate change mitigation and reducing the need for policy measures to ensure rapid deployment," it continues.