If not Al Gore, Do We Believe the U.S. Military?

The following comes from the Bloomberg news service, founded by the billionaire mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg.

UN Seeks Measures to Combat Climate Change Crises

Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Rising sea levels are likely to prompt mass migrations accompanied by conflicts and sanitary crises, requiring urgent planning to guarantee food and other essentials, a UN conference on climate change heard. 

Funds of $67 billion annually in 2030 ``may represent the lower bound of the amount actually required'' to help people in developing countries adapt to climate change, the United Nations said in a report to the meeting in Vienna. Money is needed to ensure access to food supplies, healthcare and infrastructure. 

``These issues are certainly going to be a factor,'' said the senior climate negotiator for the U.S. State Department, Harlan Watson, late yesterday. ``Climate change can exacerbate already underlying tensions.'' 

About 1,000 diplomats, scientists and business leaders from 150 countries are attending the Vienna Climate Change Talks organized by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. 

More than 1 billion hectares (2.5 billion acres) of land worldwide, equivalent to the size of Canada, has been damaged by human activity, according to an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe report published in January. Rising sea levels, the spread of tropical diseases and frequent storms are likely to result from a warmer climate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in April. 

The U.S. and U.K. militaries are taking note. 

Risk of War 

``Expanding populations around the world are already placing a strain on scarce resources,'' U.K. Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup said in a June speech in London. ``Climate change will make this competition more acute and history is replete with cases of resource competition that have rapidly descended into armed conflict.'' 

Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention, credited the U.K. with pushing climate change to the forefront of European Union policy considerations. The EU agreed in June to cut greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent, from 1990 levels, in the next four decades. 

The IPCC on Feb. 2 said temperatures have risen by 0.76 degrees Celsius (1.37 Fahrenheit) since the 19th century, and will rise by another 1.1 to 6.4 degrees this century. Global warming is ``very likely'' caused by human activities, such as emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, according to the panel. 

The panel said 75 million to 250 million more people in Africa will be exposed to water shortages and rain-dependent agricultural yields could fall by 50 percent by 2020; the cost of adapting to changes brought on by global warming could be as much as 10 percent of economic output. 

`Persistent Conflict' 

U.S. security experts are gearing up for an era of ``persistent conflict,'' Army Chief of Staff George Casey told the National Press Club in Washington on Aug. 14. Climate change raises the risk, he said. [Emphasis mine.]

``We live close to a very large number of countries that will be vulnerable to climate change as sea levels rise,'' said New Zealand's climate change ambassador, Adrian Macey, in an interview. ``Future population shifts caused by climate change need to be explored further.'' 

Developing countries like Indonesia, with 250 million people spread over hundreds of islands, would like to see discussions about population shifts brought into treaty negotiations, Deputy Environment Minister Masnellyarti Hilman said. 

``We're already experiencing the problems of eroding coastlines and flooding,'' Hilman said, noting that talks will continue when the UN's climate change panel meets in Bali in December. Formal negotiations are due then on a treaty to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions that will replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. The Vienna talks, which began Aug. 27, end tomorrow. 

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Tirone in Vienna at jtirone@bloomberg.net ; Mathew Carr in Vienna at m.carr@bloomberg.net 

August 30, 2007

If you answer the multiple-choice questions below and e-mail to lessonanswers@mymontebello.com with “Lesson answers” in the subject field, you will be credited toward a “certificate of recognition in community affairs” to be awarded in 2007 by a local nonprofit organization.

1. What is likely to happen because of global warming?
(a) Mass migrations accompanied by conflicts and sanitary crises.
(b) Rising sea levels, the spread of tropical diseases and frequent storms.
(c) Climate change will make the competition for scarce resources more acute and history is replete with cases of resource competition that have rapidly descended into armed conflict.

2. What is being done in answer to these challenges?
(a) U.S. security experts are gearing up for an era of “persistent conflict.”
(b) The European Union agreed in June to cut greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent, from 1990 levels, in the next four decades.

September 7, 2007